Aethus: Year One
by Apocalyptian Scribe
Summary: Being Re-Written
1. Prologue: It Always Goes Wrong

**Aethus: Year One**

* * *

**Prologue: It Always Goes Wrong**

* * *

Sometimes, when he stared into the emptiness of space, he felt as though it would swallow him whole.

Of course, the void of space was a cold and harsh place; Captain Vennil was plenty familiar with this. He was reminded constantly as he stared through the thinnest line of defense he had against the vacuum. It was a clean window, one covered by a several layers of clear and hard material and shields, but a window nonetheless. He would have been shrewd with this design choice on most occasions, but he wasn't a ship designer.

Patrol was a boredom driven task to say the least and the only difficult part of it would have been to keep vigilant through the monotony. That meant keeping watch and paying attention, something that Vennil had trouble doing when every other grunt position was filled up. Luckily, as most tasks could be wrapped up by any half-brained officer, the turian had excused himself to his chambers to rest.

Sleep did not come, for the captain was no sleeper. His Turian diligence had kept him from falling into such a state, for it had drained him of any comfort in the silence of it all. In his younger days, sleep and rest was for those that could afford their own deaths. Any lack of vigilance meant that he would be snuffed out in an instant by forces more prepared than he was.

Still, even if he was neither Asari nor Krogan, Captain Vennil was still something of a nostalgic warrior for the past. He remembered his glory days as a lower ranked ensign, battling it out in the Attican Traverse against pirates and mercs. Funny how several promotions and an eventual injury could get him stuck here on patrol. Some would have considered his position lucky and fitting for someone like him. He already knew a few that would enjoy leaving the dangers of the Attican Traverse and the Terminus systems behind.

Vennil thought otherwise to this.

He wanted the fierce fighting, the action, and most of all, the glory at the end of a long, long road. As bored as he got, he knew that if anything needed to go, they still needed to win. The Turians were, after all, the Council's right hand and to lose meant to show that they were unfit to be in such a position. Still, even a little bit of chaos would have been nice; better chaotic and hopeful than peaceful and boring.

Almost as if to shake him out of his stupor, the shape of a cruiser came into view. The TSC Blessem was followed by several smaller frigates judging by the lights they gave him, it told him something was amiss or off. Vennil gave a wave to signal back and he turned to walk out on deck. Hopefully, there was going to be something to make change up this trip.

As soon as he stepped, several ensigns and lower officers gave a salute. Vennil didn't even bother to tell them to ease up, both because he was too preoccupied and because it kept his men on their toes.

"Well?" Vennil growled through his faceplates, "What's wrong then?"

His voice came out a bit more hostile than he intended as evidenced by the silence. This had been the worst part of the reassignment. He could have dealt with all the little things if he could at least be a bit immature. But nope, he couldn't do that now. A captain had to maintain an image of respect or face the opposite. While he could cut back once in a while when it was deemed appropriate, he certainly couldn't be so casual with anyone.

The walk to his helm kept with the silence. No one tried looking at the Captain directly as a sign of respect, but to him it looked more like he was being sent to death row. Not letting it bother him, he kept with his image and stopped right when he could. There were four main ensigns that oversaw everything. He had always called them his four eyes, much like a Batarian's own gaze. Each "eye" did several jobs that oversaw everything the lower ensigns did that operated certain parts of the ship. Vennil was hard pressed to admit that he had gotten to know and appreciate each and every one of his eyes.

"Captain," they all said in unison. Vennil sometimes thought they rehearsed their unity, but given how long they served under him, he figured they'd find a rhythm to each other.

"You called for me," Vennil was more comfortable with statements than questions.

An ensign closest to his right was quick to answer, slightly fazed by his gruffness, "Sir, we are getting readings from Relay 314. They're . . . unusual."

The mere mention of the unusual pricked at the captain's interest. Usually they had called him for something regarding procedure, never anything out of the ordinary. A Turian equivalent of a smile came as he looked at the ensign's screen.

"Well what is unusual then?"

"I . . . I don't know."

Ah yes, Vennil was aware of ensign Mavil. The young Turian was quite the prodigy in his field, being able to notice the slightest of anomilies and work around them with swift talons like nobody's business. The only problem, being a genius navigational operator did not translate to clear communication. Vennil's face formed a mischievous sneer, trying to think of something to do to throw off the ensign further.

Luckily for Mavil, Vennil's sensibility won out.

"That's not an answer, ensign."

Mavil froze, blinking once before turning to the captain.

"S-sorry sir . . ."

Vennil nodded calmly as he looked over the Turian's shoulders. The captain wasn't allowed to have favorites, but if he had a choice, Mavil was easily one of his top picks. He was smart and skilled, but humble enough to bow his head to an officer. Mavil was quick to point out his own mistakes and correct them, something most other Turians seemed to have trouble with. It also helped that Vennil saw himself in the ensign.

"You got the data ensign. Condense it and tell me what's important"

There was an introspective pause before the ensign continued, "Well, um . . . we're seeing unusual energy signatures coming from the relay. It's pulsing, like it usually does when ships use the relay."

"That hardly seems like something I would be alarmed about-"

Another pause, "But . . . nothing's coming out . . ."

One of the other ensigns, Deeiv coughed at this. He was an older ensign; more experienced than Mavil, but got his head into too many things. Deeiv was sort of the surrogate elder brother to Mavil as he had transferred with the young prodigy. The only difference came when Deeiv tended to operate on less intelligent ways than Mavil.

"Ensign Deeiv," Vennil said with a smirk, "What's so funny?"

That shut him up faster than a Salarian stuck with a starving Krogan. The captain almost swore the ensign shit himself before responding.

"N-nothing, sir! I was just . . . curious with Mavil's description of the Relay, that's all!"

Luckily for Deeiv, Vennil was not willing to press the matter. Any bit of humor was nice to have in the face of dysfunctional relays. The mention of such things was enough to send any Turian on edge. Those Prothean monoliths were way out of a simple patrol fleet's jurisdiction, both in its decommissioning and its destruction. Had it not been his need to sate his boredom, Vennil would have easily left for the council straight away or even sent word to both the Hierarchy and the Salarians.

But wait, no, wait.

"Ensign," Vennil suddenly said, "Check the records for Relay 314."

For a moment, the younger Turian faltered, but he quickly moved his fingers to tap on the appropriate buttons and panels to reveal data. He grew a puzzled look after a somewhat first, second, and even third failed attempt.

"There are no records, sir."

Vennil nodded, "Because that Relay is supposed to be closed."

Suddenly there was a chill in the air as the rest of the crew looked towards Vennil. There was no doubt what the Captain was suggesting and the data was there in plain view. To think that someone would have been foolish enough to reactivate old relays after the Rachni.

Either these idiots were brigands and pirates trying to find worlds to keep their stash safe, or some scientists trying to break citadel laws. The first option was sounding a lot saner than the last one, but it was nice to bring up the unlikely.

Still, pirates were also an unlikely option as they were far keener on being active in the Attican traverse. Even in his year or two of service as Captain, Vennil had only seen these lawless scums near the edge of his patrol route. Not only that, but even he knew that they weren't stupid enough to do something as dangerous as activating relays.

Nevertheless, that was no reason to not check things out. If anything, because there was less activity here, the lightened security would give some roaming mercs groups or pirates a reason to situate here.

Or at least, that was what he said to himself.

"Men," he finally spoke with confidence, "it seems like someone's activated a Relay. Let's educate these low lives shall we?"

Immediately the crew buzzed with activity, readying weapons and prepping the other ships for a chance in course. Vennil smiled as it all went down; he even moved towards the back to watch his crew in action.

In less than a minute, all ships had set a course towards the relay. The patrol fleet wasn't much, but a dreadnought along with twenty frigates and a dozen cruisers were more than enough for any little pirate. His ship, the TSD Abolis, was a beauty of a dreadnought, but one that had served as his prison during his time as Captain.

The dreadnought had never seen any action as nearly all engagements had involved the summary destruction through the light firing from frigates and cruisers alone. There were no light arms on his ship, only several high intensity mass accelerator cannons designed to destroy large opponents or swaths of enemies clumped up in a group. He wouldn't have admitted it, but the Captain had always been eager to try out his "toy" in a battle and perhaps he would get that chance today.

It took a good portion of an hour to get to the relay and by then, Vennil had calmed down. The relay was not in view but every pulse that emanated from the Relay kept everyone aware. Unsurprisingly, the pulses were getting stronger as they moved closer; Vennil's ensign was starting to shiver.

"Ensign Mavil, keep calm."

Mavil gave a nod at this, but kept looking at his screen, "W-well, sir, the pulses seem to be slowing."

"What?" the Captain coughed out in a panic.

"Yes, the change is small, but it is getting slower. We'll be getting visuals on the relay soon enough."

Vennil was quick to nod and moved back to his normal position on the deck. The idiots that activated the relay were probably running away now that a full-fledged Turian patrol fleet was converging on the relay. It was looking to be yet another annoyance in his patrol more than anything else.

Just when he was about to go back, an equally gravelly voice to his own resonated behind him, "Captain"

"Dalic."

"Please, I'd appreciate some formality between us, sir."

Vennil gave his fellow Turian a smirk; he had expected the navigator to get annoyed. Even to Turian standards, Dalic was known to be straight-laced even in the hardest of circumstances.

"I'm not going to call you by your last name. I already have seventy others that barely breathe in my direction let alone speak to me casually."

"That does not equate a need for a lack of respect." Vennil snickered at this.

"I know, I know."

The navigator nodded, his dark tattoos and red markings clashing with the light of the ship. Indeed, though Dalic was older than Vennil, his honor dictated that he stand down in the presence of a superior officer. Many years previously, the navigator, then weapon's specialist, was keen to teach Vennil of such things. Vennil was quick to learn, though he learned even quicker when he could drop the act.

Perhaps that was why he was a captain and Dalic a navigator.

"So then, Captain, what do you think?"

"Hmm," Vennil was just grazing through his thoughts when Dalic continued.

"The relay, sir."

"Ah," Vennil shook his head as he waved his hand around, "I doubt it's anything important -"

"That doesn't sound like you at all," Dalic narrowed his eyes as he looked at the data. Vennil simply scoffed.

"And why would that be?"

". . . forgive me, I've made a mistake," Dalic said as casually as he could, "I've mistaken your disappointment for civility."

Such a playful jab could only come from another equal, but Vennil wished it came at a different time, "If you haven't noticed, I'm still disappointed."

"Still lusting for battle?"

Vennil turned for a second and looked forward again, "No, just something interesting that's all."

"You need to calm down. Think of your family or the man that vouched for your promotion right next to you."

"It's your own fault that she's so smitten with me."

Dalic paused as his eyes narrowed, but the air remained friendly, "And she has every right to be. However, you still should keep vigilant of your desires."

"I'm plenty vigilant"

"When you're faced with a wall and a bomb maybe, but last I checked that was almost seven years ago."

"Your point, Dalic?"

"Nothing, just nothing, old friend. I just want to see how much I could annoy you before you asked."

Sometimes Vennil wished the man wasn't so quick and witty. He hadn't always been like this, in fact, most of their conversation used to end with begrudging stares towards the other. Luckily, Dalic softened his hard ass demeanor and Vennil opened himself up. About five years after their ship was decommissioned, Dalic introduced him to Sava and the rest was history. Funny how the two most opposite people could have been gone from spiteful enemies to literal brothers in law in five years, Vennil couldn't believe it.

"She's doing well, by the way." Vennil saying as though to ease Dalic's attacks.

"Of course," Dalic nodded, "I would have expected such. I wouldn't introduce my sister to someone I didn't trust."

Vennil smiled to himself, "How about your own love life, Dalic. You're not going to leave me in the dark after all those questions, are you?"

"Well-"

"Sir, we've finally got a visual on the relay."

Vennil almost received whiplash when he snapped his neck to ensign Deeiv. Not wanting to mess about, the captain walked to his command post without pause and cleared his throat.

"Well let's have a look then."

When the image popped up on his screen, Vennil had expected . . . well, nothing. He expected the relay intact and unaffected with the idiots messing with the Prothean device to be long gone. It should have been that way; it just had to be. A patrol mission like his was meant to be devoid of anything spectacular or grand. He should have been done in two weeks with nothing to fawn over but his lover for another galactic month.

Unfortunately, as fate would have it, life was not in his favor and something had appeared into view along with the tuning fork shaped object. Almost every Turian had missed the speck, given the ship hadn't detected real ship signatures. The single chance they had to turn back would pass, however, when Vennil stayed true to his vigilance. He alone was the only one to see a shape within the darkness of space and it too would look back.

"Ensign Kirril!" he said shouting and pointing at the speck he had seen, "Zoom in on that . . ."

The ensign nodded without question, though some of the other crewmen on deck were starting to look at Vennil. Even Dalic rose his brow just slightly as he hadn't seen such an emotion from the captain. The look on his face stayed for a moment, but when the screen came up, almost every member began gawking at the sight along with him.

A bug

A giant bug

A giant metal bug

A giant metal red and black bug

But that thing was no bug

It was a ship; a disgusting looking one to be fair, but the qualities of one was right there. Through the odd protrusions of black and red were shapes that seemed to resemble thrusters and wings of unrefined metal. The two arches traveled down the side, leading downwards as though forming the legs of an insect. Near the front were two mandibles that jutted outwards towards them and kept the overall bug themed look. If these details were strange, what was even stranger was the lack of familiarity in the core of the ship's design.

Indeed, none that had served on the bridge could even tell where this design could have originated. Where Turians and Salarians had ergonomically designed vessels that fit specific niches and the Asari had more ascetics in mind, this ship was outright clumped together like some unwieldy metal bat. In fact, it would have been better if the ship was an amalgamation of junk, because at least it would have looked passable, like ones used by Krogans and brigands from the Terminus systems. Holes, breaks, even hull breaches could be seen all over the ship. At first, Vennil thought it to be some dead Quarian ship, but even he remembered the beautiful ingenuity that he had grown to associate with the quarians.

This had nothing that could attach it to any other race, so a question began to stir within the crew. Was this truly a new ship?

"Ship designs, identification tags – now!" Dalic said breaking the silence.

Not realizing what needed to be done at first, Mavil kept to his frozen state. It didn't take long, however, for him to realize what he had to do and a few taps were followed by bated breathes and for good reason.

"Nothing sir," Mavil started, "Nothing to ID this thing."

Dalic nodded, tensions rising like heat would in a desert, "It looks . . . alien."

Everyone, even Vennil was looking at Dalic, some with more panic than any good Turian would allow. Pressure hit him in droves as he watched every officer, ensign and Turian on deck switched their gazes between the stunned captain and the equally unnerved navigator.

"Captain," Dalic began "Perhaps . . . you should speak?"

Vennil blinked, but quickly recovered, "Yes, that . . . Navigator Dalic establish contact to the best of your ability while I inform the hierarchy and the council."

With that, the entirety of the crew buzzed with activity springing into action. Dalic strode past this captain with a purpose as he gathered all four ensigns to get started. Vennil on the other hand, moved off to the side turned into a hallway. At the end of it was a door that looked as untouched as a Quarian's bosom, sanitized and way too hygienic for Vennil's taste.

The room was just as clean but communication console kept the Turian from jumbling his thoughts around. After a short pause, Vennil pinged the console awake as he waited for his receiver to take the call.

"Hello?" said a voice as an image flickered, "Who is this?"

"Primarch, this is Captain Vennil of the TSD Abolis. I have an urgent message for you. I believe we have come across a new space faring species."

There was stillness, both in the primarch's small form and in the silence.

"That's . . ."

* * *

"That's impossible!" Dalic scoffed, "What do you mean you can't get in contact."

Ensign Deeiv was shaking his head, "We've tried every frequency, communication method, and signaling we could come up with, but nothing's working. That ship is radio silent, sir, and I think it wants to keep it that way"

"And another thing," Mavil barged in abruptly, which had been unlike him but given the circumstances, everything had gone out the window, "I've been trying to get a read on their eezo levels, but the ship isn't giving off any sort of element zero signatures."

Dalic was nervous to say the least. He had expected something to come from the strange vessel that indicated life or willingness to communicate. It should have been the case as any sane race with the want and will to travel into the stars should have prepared something for extraterrestrial life. But no, all it did was stay still, something that indicated that its operative status as an inactive spaceship would have been drawn closer and closer towards the relay before getting flung off.

Being as he was, Dalic already formulated new theories and hypothesizes to question himself with, one of which really did question these new aliens and their motives. Perhaps this ship was not filled with civilized creatures but rather war-mongering ones? If that was the case, were they buying time for reinforcements? But then they would have picked up on some sort of signal, this ship was most nearly dead, but for what he couldn't say.

"Spirits, what have I gotten myself into?"

"Sir, should we do something?"

Getting somewhat desperate, Dalic shrugged and then got on his omni-tool, "All ships, move closer towards the bug. Power down all but the smallest cannons, no need to evoke a threatening stance."

With that, all ships began drifting towards the strange ship. No doubt tensions rose on high, made worse by the fact that the men were somewhat unfamiliar with something as sensitive as this. Luckily, things seemed to go smoothly as the four eyes were trying their best to get some form of contact.

Still nothing and now Dalic was starting to get that familiar itch near the back of his head he had whenever something terrible would happen.

"Uh, S-sir?" Mavil's stutter dragged the navigator out of his mind, "Are relays usually dotted like that?"

"What? What are you talking-"

But then it happened, the itch had gone away. The only times they really did go away was either when the event had passed or something else replaced it. That something else, in this case, was utter fear, spine tingling fear that paralyzed his vocals and locked his joints in place. His eyes were stuck on the relay when he noticed what Mavil was talking about.

The description of an insect was perfect for this sort of ship as soon as he saw the near hundreds of blinking objects littered all on the relay. What was worse was that these objects were moving, skittering more precisely. The relay had been activated as indicated by the light within the two circular parts that were normally moving . . . only they weren't moving now. They were stuck in place as though held by an invisible force. What was worse was that he could tell that it wanted to move when it occasionally twitched for a second only to come back into its held position.

Before he could question what in the hell they were doing, the ship they had finally lost focus on reacted to their presence. It turned towards them while the Turians were still mesmerized from the sight of the relay. That too was cut short when Dalic noticed the ship start to shake itself. He had little time to react when a part of the ship literally detached itself and flung itself towards them.

Dalic almost jumped at the sight, "Deploy countermeasures! Stop that projectile."

Luckily, the other ships had gotten prepped right before his mark and began moving forward to shield the main dreadnought. Blue shots ripped from their mass accelerator cannons, aiming to shred the cylindrical missile from existence. Dalic clenched his hand as they hit their mark . . . but the thing remained unaffected. Indeed, the damage the projectile had accrued was akin to that of a paint job rather than utter destruction.

What was the damned thing made of? He couldn't even see any sort of shielding repelling the shots off. He also knew that they were making their mark when the screen showed the hull of the missile getting blackened. By the halfway mark, Dalic was about to order for evasive maneuvers when he was stopped.

"Main cannons ready, sir!" said one of the four ensigns. Dalic blinked and breathed a sigh of relief. Though the ship would be forced to stay still to aim, nothing save for another dreadnought's shields would have stopped the Abolis' cannons.

A shame that Vennil wouldn't get to see it fire.

"Fire," Dalic commanded and fire they did. The small charge up was annoying, but when it fired, he knew that they would hit their mark. The smaller ships began moving out of the way when it finally released, the shot being slower than the smaller arms fired. That should have been the end of it all and they should have been finished with this crazy little experience. They should have been going home after that, explaining what they had seen to prepare for some unknown alien force that created the crudest of contraptions. Maybe in that scenario, they would have not faced the tragedy that the galaxy would feel in this one.

Unfortunately, they were not given reprieve as the projectile did something unlike anything Dalic had ever scene. It had actually begun before they had fired and during their charge up time, but as the Abolis' mass accelerator shot moved towards the projectile . . . the projectile extended to reveal three separate parts.

And then the projectile dodged the shot. Dalic froze for the single moment he saw the thing extend and move out of the shot. The sight had been so unique with each segment rotating to provide locomotion for its movement. What was even creepier was seeing the projectile expand more and more, longer and longer until he recognized the movements to be like that of a worm. This was no mere projectile, this thing was moving more like a creature than a weapon.

Dalic could no longer hear anything else as the chaos came before him. The ship tried to fire more shots, but the few times they did so was merely outmaneuvered by the worm. Frigates and cruisers did all they could to try and stop the creature, even flying directly right into the damn thing. Just like the small arms, all they did was merely darken the creature's skin. As it came closer, Dalic had the idea of calling evasive maneuvers, but then its front opened up like a flower made of metal teeth. It gained speed in last seconds running its mouth straight at the hull of the ship to knock the navigator off his feet.

* * *

When Vennil felt the collision, he too was thrown onto the ground. Seconds earlier, the small holograms of the three council members had been telling him to make sure things would go smoothly.

Yes, he assured them.

Absolutely, he said.

Oh, of course he'd be calm and collected.

All those promises just seemed to make the situation more bitter than normal. Fortunately, the call had ended, most likely due to whatever had hit them. At least he got the action he wanted.

Running back to the deck granted him a very strange sight of his fellow crew members either face planted on the ground or knocked out of their seats in silly and twisted ways. Dalic was on the ground when he came over to his position. Vennil had far too much energy to stay grim when he helped Dalic up.

"That is a rare sight to see," Vennil was dragging Dalic up who had still been in a daze, "Spirits what did you do to get them angry?"

Dalic was growling, "They didn't give me anything. They didn't even try to communicate. All they did . . . Spirits, GIVE ME A VISUAL ON THE HULL!"

None of the operatives were quite ready to do work, so Vennil scrambled to one of their terminals to contact one of the ships. Almost immediately, a screen popped up to show the TSD Abolis . . . with a particularly large parasite wrapped around the hull. The creature had now become so large that its mouth had covered a good portion of the ship while the body wrapped around the entire ship once. Vennil's eyes grew wide as he lost his breath.

"That . . . where-"

Dalic cut him off, "Long story, check for the damages."

Still in the groove of working the terminals, Vennil nodded as he pulled up diagnostics on the ship. This would have taken him back to his earlier years had this situation not been so overblown and when he was finished, he was far more puzzled than anything else.

"I see a destroyed communication relay . . . and several damaged engines," he said solemnly, "If this thing was supposed to outright destroy our ship, it's done a terrible job at it."

Dalic came over to check over Vennil's shoulders, "A malfunctioning communication relay isn't something to shrug off Captain."

Vennil narrowed his eyes, but held his tongue. After much thought, he rose from the seat and went to each and every Turian to help them up. Dalic followed the captain's steps, seeing no immediate danger. By the time they got everyone up and awake, they only found two crewmembers on the deck that was suffering from a form of concussion. Everyone else was either bruised or bleeding, but still able to work.

The four ensigns were first to go back to work as their job was to keep everyone else coordinated. Inner ship communications came up smoothly as they finally got to fixing it getting word from every part of the ship. As things started to calm down, the captain was still puzzled by their attackers.

"Do you think it's a parasite?" Vennil said as Dalic wiped the blood of another Turian, "Maybe it's some undiscovered species that came through the Relay."

Dalic shook his head, "No, this thing isn't eating the ship or draining energy. It also wasn't a worm when it came to us. Something fired the accursed thing at us."

"Can we fire it off?"

"The only weapon that seemed to even scare it was our main guns, but I doubt we could find a way to aim it at ourselves without destroying us as well."

For a moment, Vennil quieted as he carefully listened to Dalic. Looking at his navigator, he said, "You fired . . . the cannon?"

Dalic sighed, "Yes-"

"How was it?"

"Very blue, though we never got to hit it."

Vennil nodded his head, "Shame, but at least we know that this thing isn't invincible."

"And has a survival instinct," Dalic added as he got closer to the captain, "Vennil, one of the Ensigns told me that we don't have a visual on the ship."

"It's gone?"

Dalic shook his head, "Well I don't think that. I'm sure we just can't see it . . . but that's not the point. Before it fired on us-"

"S-sir," said the ever present Ensign Mavil, "There's something I've just found."

With that, Vennil got into high alert as he shouted again, "Everyone, back to your posts! Mavil, what's happening?"

Mavil shook but kept his voice as level as he could, "I . . . I didn't catch it until now, but right when operations went down, I think the worm hooked itself into the hull with its mouth. We weren't getting much looking at the worm, but then we noticed something trying to dig into the hull."

Dalic gave him a confused look, "What? What is it-"

Suddenly, the older ensign, Deeiv, turned and tried to keep his voice down, "Sir, permission to speak?"

"Granted," Vennil said. Deeiv nodded as he pulled his console. It was a panel full of numbers and letters most personnel didn't quite understand, Vennil being one of them.

"Our readings are grabbing no movements from the worm itself, but we're getting noises and readings from inside."

Mavil gulped, "We think it might the creature might be . . . a boarding vessel."

He narrowed his eyes as he looked around Dalic was starting to understand what was happening as well when the captain pulled up his omnitool and spoke to the whole ship, "I want two squads to head down to the supply bay. ."

Dalic watched as everyone began to rush to either their stations or down below. He ran up to Vennil and looked at the captain with doubt in his eyes, "A boarding? What insanity-"

"That thing . . . how big was it before it grew."

Dalic looked away for a second as he tried recalling the size, ". . . It was large . . . but even if the creature is as big as it was now, it still would need organs to function. It doesn't have the space to fit soldiers or a boarding party inside it."

A slow breath came from Vennil as he looked at the screen with the creature on it, "Then why isn't it doing anything . . . if it's shown to have a survival instinct."

He wanted to answer that question, he really did. However, for whatever reason, there was no answer that could come to Dalic's mind. In fact, he started to think a lot more about the creature's habits. If the creature was that shape normally, then why did it maintain a smaller size before shooting towards them. He even began to wonder how something could even evolve to latch on to ships or even recognize threats from advanced weaponry. Everything soon began to add up as Vennil gave a grim look at the creature.

"I think we're dealing with a species that's has weaponized animals."

Dalic shuddered in agreement, but things were only starting from there.

The hustle and bustle soon filled every corner of the ship the news of two squads had scattered around every corner. Even with their discipline and conduct, rumors and talk was still starting to spread around. Though there was chaos, order had been kept due to their Turian training. Of course, how long their training would keep them prepared was already being tested. After all, how were they even trained to deal with giant space worms that tried to breach their hull? Vennil was certainly barely able to deal with it himself.

A small screen came up as Vennil tried to watch what was happening. All the other personnel remained blind as they tried to get things fix with their damaged comms and engines. Thus, only Vennil and Dalic could see that the cameras down in the bay had been downed with only sounds coming through, with the four ensigns barely able to hear their muttered curses.

"We're right here, sir," said the Turian officer that was leading their forces, "How's it looking on the inside."

"Visuals are down Sergeant and I'm hearing nothing inside either. You're going to have to go in blind."

"Roger that, Captain."

Suddenly, Dalic pulled in to add his two thoughts, "The breach we detected was miniscule; The hull itself will hold if you use heavier weaponry."

"With all due respect, they won't be getting to the heavy weapons, sir. We'll get these bastards and send em' crawling back to those bugs before you know it."

Vennil nodded as he looked at Dalic with a puzzled eye, "Vennil out."

There was a pause as he looked at Dalic, after all, Dalic wasn't looking too good and when Vennil tried to get his attention, Dalic almost jumped. Now it was clear to the captain that something was off.

"What's wrong," Vennil asked cautiously, "I don't like that look on your face."

It was then that Dalic looked at the crew, noticing their glances. They ultimately turned away, not knowing what was causing Dalic to go wide eyed and such. In that moment, he came close to Vennil and whispers, "I have another itch . . ."

Vennil froze far longer than he needed to when he heard Dalic's voice, "How long?"

"Ever since we looked at the screen. . ."

Before he could say something else, the Major whispered into the omnitool alerting both Vennil and Dalic, "We're going in. Wish us luck"

It was a mere second before both the omnitool and the sound capture from inside the supply bay caught their loud shouts and explosive entrance. He heard their footsteps make contact with the metal floor.

"Entering supply bay now, got visual on the breach, almost like something ripped through it . . ."

Vennil gulped, the tension rising as the soldiers could only provide descriptions of visuals. He may as well have been going in blind as he waited for more info. The steps were continuing as the Turians continued their search. The supply bay was quite sizable considering how big dreadnoughts were. In addition, because they had such a large crew, the amount of metal crates was astounding, but it also gave him the chills.

In his earlier days as an ensign, a story circulated regarding a random ensign that got himself trapped in the supply bay of their dreadnought. It shouldn't have been too bad and the longest time he would have been trapped would have been 24 hours. However, the story went that something had been hiding with him as well and by the time they had found him, the missing ensign . . . had been mincemeat.

Just imagining the men down there looking around every crate, nook and cranny in a dark metal maze began to shake him to the core as the steps hit. Their steps were like a heavy thud, a drum or a heartbeat that echoed inside his heads. Every waking second came the horrible sound, one after the other, that screamed how close they were getting to their doom. Vennil nearly thought that he was sending them through the gates of the dead when they finally stopped

Their steps, in fact, had stopped right as it got the loudest. Vennil figured they were right next to the camera and when the major spoke, all six Turians listening in on the omnitool and the camera feed were hearing both of them as clear as spring day. Vennil wished he hadn't.

"Visual . . . on our boarding party."

Vennil closed his eyes for a moment and spoke, "How many?"

An eerily long pause followed by a shaking voice, ". . . I see one target . . . it's just standing there."

"What?" Dalic said trying to keep quiet, "You must be joking."

The silence almost annunciated a head shake moving left to right, even when the two couldn't see the major. "We're seeing some sort of red liquid coming from the things . . . hands . . . It looks like an Asari's."

"Has it noticed you?"

"Yes."

Vennil and Dalic froze, "How long has it noticed you?"

"It's been watching us before we even saw it."

Vennil felt impatience get to him as he growled, "What the hell does it look like!?"

"It's wearing some sort of mesh. It's got the same body structure as an Asari . . . if Asari were ten feet tall and lacked mammaries-"

"Spirits, ten feet tall?" Vennil was practically pacing just trying to get the nerves out. It wasn't working, "Weapons? Tools? How did it get it?"

That was the real kicker, when there was more shuffling. Clearly the soldiers were looking around all the while their target was watching them. A few more seconds, the Major was answering back and in the worst way possible.

"I . . . I think it used its hands."

Up until that point, there had been nothing coming from the boarder. There had been no noise, no movement, not even a breath that indicated that it was alive. Then, in that moment in time, just when Vennil was about to freeze up completely, it broke him out of his stupor.

"Youh Dah'al Mod'ahl mohul Ulh Loham," the thing growled in a guttural snarl.

Arms tensed at the creature's mutterings; the ensigns even turning towards the floating screen that was in front of Vennil and Dalic. If they didn't know what it was feeling, they certainly knew now that it wasn't intimidated in the slightest. Did it not know what a gun was? Did I know what was even happening? Nothing began to make sense until it started to do something that everyone understood. Both Vennim and Dalic gulped as they heard the creature start to force breath out its lungs and laughed.

And then there was chaos.

The first noise that came was the sudden slamming of metal and a hoarse screech coming afterwards. In that instance, Vennil found his connection to the camera and the Major completely cut off. Without missing a beat, Dalic turned to one of the ensigns, "Get me the visuals and sounds on camera 329, NOW!"

Deeiv was the first to pull it up, quickly turning back to the screen with the others. The camera had been situated right outside the supply bay entrance. The doors were closed, but then, the sounds of gunfire and horrified shouts were echoing through. Vennil barely caught several words that leaked through, but by the end it could hear the worst of it.

"Spirits, I'm bleeding!"

"He's fucking smashed his skull in!"

"Shoot this bastard!"

"Retre- AGHhhh!"

The last bit had been ended with a very loud screech of the metal door. There was only a tiny opening and deep inside the belly of the beast the darkness answered. Granted, it might have been larger, only looking small since the camera had been far enough away from the wall. Despite this, the uncertainty still remained as silence crept in. Nothing but an empty silence was greeting all six members.

Suddenly, a noise tore through the infinite silence, indistinguishable at first but quite dreadful once it had been recognized. The ripping of flesh and the crushing of bone was a unique sound that had come to Vennil previously in his life. He had thought he would never listen to those noises again, but it seemed as though fate had been cruel. The others began to almost look as though they would wretch up and hurl, Mavil almost doing so but stopped when Deeiv helped the younger ensign.

Then, something popped from the darkness and gripped the edges of the opening. Soon after can a terrible ripping sound of metal. No one was spared the sight of something tearing through the door with its bare hands and even when it ended, they were again shocked with what they were given.

"They were . . . right," Vennil shuddered as he saw the screen, "One . . . one of . . . that . . . It really did tear through the hull."

Of course, if he had been one of the soldiers inside the supply bay, he would have also cursing to hell and back about how big said soldier was. The descriptions were spot on with the shape of the creature was similar to an Asari. Everyone would have screamed more about how similar the freak of nature standing before them was more like a Krogan than anything else. Hell, it was taller too, but not by much. The proportions, however, was more like the previously said Asari, save for the usual bosom marking their chest.

Blood was leaking through a single wound, the only wound that seemed to be there really. Indeed, despite the mask and mesh that hid the creature's real body, the one place that seemed to be uncovered was the mouth. The jaw looked strong and as they figured, blood was crawling all over the uncovered part of the skin. Disturbingly enough, Vennil caught a glimpse of the creature's clothing start to regenerate as it tried to cover the blood stained maw.

"Close off that section of the ship," he said as he pushed away the screen, "We're evacuating, immediately."

As soon as the ensign heard this, they nodded and committed to the protocols. Alarms soon began to blare as they started to wall up the creature's path. Vennil quick pulled his omnitool to his face as he spoke.

"Attention all crew members, we have just been boarded. Proceed to the escape pods and leave immediately. Keep away from Supply Bay A and leave immediately. I repeat, leave immediately."

And almost immediately, the bridge crew members around all six higher ups began to hurriedly shuffle out and on towards the pods. Of the four ensign, only Deeiv and Mavil stayed behind to help with data purging. Of all the things a Dreadnought had, there were about, give or take, several hundred tidbits they had to get rid of before calling things safe. The time they needed should have been a lot less, but, of course, everything had to be behind some form of security that both Vennil and Dalic helped bypass. Vennil was starting to shake as he helped moved Mavil traverse the data landscape.

He would have preferred to completely send the bridge in flames than take time to do this. The only problem was that destroying the consoles didn't empty out what they had in the ship's mainframe. That was far too close to the supply bay for comfort. Deeiv, while getting help from Dalic, almost seemed to multitask as he looked at two screens at once.

"He's destroyed nearly 12 doors," Deeiv said taking a glance, "How many minutes-"

"T-twenty," Mavil muttered as he shook uncontrollably. Taking a note of this, Vennil grabbed put his arm around the ensign's shoulders.

"I don't think I would have any other ensign with me to face something as crazy as this son of a bitch."

Deeiv gave a second to smirk before being as serious as he tried to be, "I think Mavil's just stuck in his seat sir."

It was a first in a long time to hear Mavil chuckle. Granted, it sounded like a whimper mixed with a chuckle, but Vennil was taking things as he could. As time progressed, however, things had turned for the worse.

"We're not going to make it," Dalic said quietly, "It's breeching the last door."

Mavil and Deeiv shook in their seats as they heard thunderous footsteps and the endless screeching of a waning wall. Indeed, their time had indeed been spent, but only so much of the data had been purged. Vennil gave it a peek as he watched it bend more and more in, the door taking longer to give as it was given extra reinforcement.

"It's not over yet," Vennil said still focused on the purge.

"Indeed," Dalic muttered as he tapped the two ensign on their shoulders. They looked up at the navigator, unsure of what to do, but, when they saw what the navigator had in his sight, they nodded to Dalic and abruptly stood. Vennil had been so enraptured that he couldn't see the two ensigns come to his side and lock his arms.

"W-what?!" the captain was flailing as he tried to get himself out of their grasps, "Let go you idiots! We still have time!"

"Since you asked, Captain," Dalic said with a cold humor to his voice, "I'm too old to have a love life."

Horrified, Vennil watched as the two ensigns dragged him towards the outer door. No matter how much he tried to release himself, both Deeiv and Mavil held strong. In all his struggles, the only thing he could manage to do was kick a chair onto the floor before the door closed in on them. Dalic whispered softly as he continued the purge.

"Goodbye, Vennil. Keep my sister safe."

* * *

"Bastard"

Unbeknownst to Dalic, the Captain heard him speak his first name. Conflicting pains welled up in his stomach, one that wanted to break down the door and the other wanting to use that strength to give Dalic a solid punch to the face. Unfortunately for him, neither option seemed to be possible as the navigator had already locked him out of the bridge with the same reinforced doors as the creature had.

Mavil and Deeiv stayed by Vennil, but the ever groaning walls had them with one foot ready to leave and the other just waiting to help the Captain up. Had they known this would occur? Did Dalic tell them ahead of time? He almost wanted to shout them down and use every bit of frustration he had against his subordinates.

But that wouldn't have solved anything . . . and it still wouldn't stop what was going to happen to them if they didn't get to moving. When the banging stopped, the ensigns looked between themselves, silently asking the other to help Vennil up. The final thud had been the nail on the coffin. Dalic had already signed himself to his fate and it would have been foolish to let his sacrifice go to waste.

"And goodbye to you, old friend."

* * *

Despite hearing what the others thought to be the final thud, Dalic kept to the work set out to do. There was still just a couple more seconds before his work was completed and just as much time for the creature to walk over to him. He could have sworn that the floor was whining just from the weight of the intruder as it walked slowly towards him. By the time it stopped, so many of his senses felt overwhelmed as it comprehended the creature's presence.

He was no old Turian, nor had he been some war hero who retired after his prime. Even so, Dalic was far to certain that everything that emanated from the monster standing behind him was swallowed by the presence of death itself.

By the time he had finished, the navigator's hands were still lying on the keyboard. Nothing near him could give off a reflection and he was working blind. His instincts were telling him that it was close, simply a couple steps away from him.

He had his gun to his side, but that would have taken too long. In addition, he recalled that the creature had managed to overpower an entire team carrying higher caliber guns and he doubted his pistol would do what those guns couldn't. Instead, he had his left hand slip down as it reached for something near his leg.

Without giving a second to react, Dalic turned and threw a knife right at the creature and pulled his gun out with the other hand. With the combined action of a knife throw along with gunfire, Dalic smirked as the knife hit its mark against the creature's face. The bullets also hit, but he didn't have much time to get into cover while it reached for its face.

The adrenaline nearly made him ignore how big the thing was, but after his initial bout, he got jittery just thinking about it. Its hand looked big enough to engulf his face and he wondered how many soldiers found themselves in those powerful fists. Taking a peek, out from his cover allowed him to take another gander as he watched the creature try and take the knife out. The sight was rather gruesome, but some part of him felt satisfied that he was at least slowing the thing down.

The bullets, on the other hand, had been ignored and he even noticed the creature's mesh outer wear reform from the tears. He gulped as he tried to think of a solution. His weapons were limited here, downright pitiful compared to what they had down at the supply bay. Perhaps if he wandered there, he could lead the creature on a wild goose chase?

It sounded solid, or at least it did on paper. Since he didn't have anything else to work with, it seemed as though that was his only option. It only took a second for him to think up of a route to sneak around the pained creature and with a nod to himself, he looked back up to try and get a visual on the monster.

Only to see a large metal frame fly right at his position.

Still feeling his adrenaline pump through his veins, Dalic used everything to roll off to the side. He barely managed to get away by the skin of his talons before the area where he had been was smashed by another equally destroyed console. The thing had pulled it out along with a piece of the wall and looked to be reaching for more.

Not wanting to disappoint, the navigator continued to dip, dive, duck, and dodge against the coming onslaught. The attacks were as telegraphed as could be and he almost wondered how things were getting to be so easy. Even Krogan weren't so easy to manipulate, though that was mostly because Krogans used guns rather than throwing things with their bare hands. Movement after movement, he found himself out of harm's way, but that didn't make things seem any less tense. Not once did he feel truly threatened and the creature's actions almost felt predictable. How this was when so much had been utterly baffling, he could not say.

It was just around the eighth time he had rolled out of his cover that he began having trouble finding somewhere else to take shelter from. No direction seemed to be clear as he realized how little room he had. Indeed, it almost seemed as though the piles and piles of destroyed metal were boxing him in . . . but surely that couldn't have been the case, right?

When he looked up, the creature had stopped moving. All the creature had to do was technically throw another part of the wall and it would have forced Dalic out, but it seemed to want to watch him instead. Seconds passed into minutes which stretched on in an endless torment of waiting. This thing knew what it was doing and Dalic knew what it was doing as well.

Stepping out from the cover, Dalic kept his hands up with his pistol poised and ready. The humanoid's head tilted from side to side as it walked around like a predator watching its prey. The creature shouldn't have been so cautious or was Dalic mistaking its caution for some vague semblance of honor? He was answered when it threw down his bloody knife right at his feet.

And before he could respond, it removed the mesh skin and mask that covered its face . . . to reveal . . .

Spirits, it really did look like an Asari . . . asides from the fur that rested on top of the creature's head. Its crimson eyes had bled through the mask, instead of the mask having red eye pieces, and that made more sense to Dalic. Still, the most striking part that he only just saw was the crease down the middle of the intruder's jawline.

Dalic noticed the snarl on its face. The expression obviously showed anger, but at the same time, there was some part of him that said it wanted to toy with him. This angry face may have been its neutral face and depending on which one it was, he was either being fucked with or given a chance to fight back.

Kneeling down, the navigator was slow in taking the knife back. His opponent made no moves to stop him, only puffing its chest while air pumped in and out through, what Dalic presumed to be, its lungs. Dalic had no reason to try anything stupid, but options were running low given his flight response seemed to produce nothing but a corpse.

But just as he was starting to weigh things out, a sudden rumbling came to rock the ship. From his past experience, Dalic was quick to determine what said shaking had come from. And when he took a gander at one of the working consoles with a live feed still fixated on the outside of the ship, he saw the tiny smidgens of escape pods appearing into view.

Again, the monster looked to be confused and the Turian took no time to take advantage. Instead of firing at him, he took a couple shots at several light fixtures above, causing them to short out and rain down glass. More confusion, and with that Dalic sprinted as fast as he could towards the door. Unfortunately, he forgot to get a glimpse of what the creature had done.

A large slab of metal and wiring slammed into him, propelling him down the hall. The view next to him showed the darkness of space and within that darkness came the sights of his fellow crew men leaving. He would have laughed or jeered for his victory, but a broken rib or two was enough to keep him from doing that. The monster stepped through the even wider doorway as his toss had inadvertently broken more of the door off. Glass pierced the creature's skin while sparks began to signal his entrance. The lights flickered on and off as his steps came louder and louder.

Dalic frowned as he tried to pull out his gun, but he found both to be pinned. He had no tricks left, so he used the last asset he had in an effort to feed his fight response.

"You're . . . dead," he said, no, muttered. A cough rang through the halls as the alarms had long quieted down. This place would be where he would rest now, "Your actions . . . you have no idea what you're dealing with. Whatever you are, whatever you came from, people will know and they will hunt you. I can't wait to see you suffer for what you've done."

It was futile, but that didn't mean he couldn't get it out. After all, just because an enemy couldn't understand his words, it didn't mean that every other part of him was completely incomprehensible. That being said, Dalic froze when he felt something crawl up the side of his head. At first he thought it to be some sort of bug or insect that came along with the creature. That theory threw itself out the window when he recognized it rather than questioned it. It grew more and more as the alien casually sauntered up to Dalic, now shaking as he realized what he was feeling.

Spirits, it was that itch again.

When things couldn't have gotten possibly worse, the ten foot tall monstrosity knelt down, Dalic's head leveled at its stomach as it leaned into him. Blood began to roll down from the creature's lips as he looked at the crease on its jaw start to unravel. But that was not what would shake him to the core . . .

"Do not worry," the words shocked Dalic as he tried to comprehend what he said. For a moment, he thought he was dreaming, but as it continued to speak, it had been clear that this alien was speaking perfect Turian, "You will not see your kind fail . . . miserably."

Suddenly, the creature grabbed Dalic by the back of his head and pulled up from the rubble. The navigator, by instinct attempted to claw at the monster's arm, but with a quick flick of its wrist, the alien forced Dalic to wail in pain. A bone jutted out from his arm while it bent at a gruesome angle. There shouldn't have been anything worse than this moment, but when the creature began to howl at his face, the navigator of the TSD Abolis saw the darkness of the abyss.

There it was, yet again staring into him as the creature's bottom jaw ripped itself in half and segmented once more. The face looked like some perverse twisted form of the Asari-like face he had seen earlier. This . . . what was this thing? This wasn't an alien; this was a demon. Dalic vocal cords were far from going out and just as the monster went for the kill, a white flash consumed everything.

* * *

All three Turians were well on their way out. Cruisers and frigates had picked up numerous pods trying to stem the chaos. Their pod was away from the group, drifting towards the other side of the ship that the other pods were. Ensign Mavil expressed his discomfort with being away from the group, especially given that a giant worm was still wrapped around the ship, but Deeiv calmed him down. Operations were going smoothly and their direct line assured them that they would be ok. Vennil, on the other hand, was not doing well, still staring out towards the ship he left his friend on. Coward, he told himself. Weakling, he muttered in his mind. Worthless, he bitterly spat at the window. Both Deeiv and Mavil were breathing in survivor's guilt as well, but even they knew their struggle was nothing compared to the Captain's thoughts.

Trying to keep calm, Deeiv did what he usually did and stared out into space. It took a second, but when he recognized the shape of the Mass Relay, he had immediately turned his attention back onto it. Observations aside, he had always been tasked with watching their surroundings in an attempt to understand their setting and course. While he certainly forgot to do it that instance, when he looked back at the relay, he began to shake when he remembered what had happened.

He gave Mavil a subtle nudge and the younger ensign looked to where he was pointing at. He too froze, fear stricken and ever cursed to remember the sight as Deeiv would.

"Captain, look!"

Vennil turned quickly, a desperate want to see one last escape pod coming from the Abolis. Only problem was that his two subordinates were not pointing at the ship. His eyes drifted slowly towards where they pointed and, at first, he didn't quite understand what was going on.

His mood changed when he started to see a bend in the light around the relay. This was, ultimately, his first time he had seen the skittering dots all over the surface. But they weren't skittering anymore; instead they had all kept still, evenly spaced out to surround the entirety of the relay. The worst was actually the hardest to see. After all, who could have seen the Relay begin to disintegrate?

"Spirits help us."

Time had finally run out as some force distorted the light to contract into one spot. Like a tsunami, it could only hold so much before it burst forth to blind everyone there.

Relay 314 was no more

* * *

**AN: Shoutout to szierera for beta-ing this story :3**

**Feel free to read and review**

**Hope this story got a people's attention**.


	2. Chapter 1: Land Fall

***Any and All Words With a Star at the End Will Be Defined in the Glossary below***

* * *

**Aethus: Year One**

* * *

**Chapter 1: Land Fall**

* * *

It was said that the entirety of the events that transpired that day, started something unimaginable to those that existed prior to that moment. Of course, while this was not entirely true due to fate's uncanny ability to cause chaos, the Quarians were definitely at one of the forefronts of change. They had gotten quite unlucky, both in their recent events and their history, and Admiral Rael'Zorah was hoping to shift their luck into more favorable waters.

Despite being called a so called beggar, Rael'Zorah certainly killed that notion from the very air he gave around him. He was intellectual, head strong, fierce, and definitely loyal. His aura of personality had been so overpowering that he had hidden far more than the usual Quarian had. Underneath it all, he was still undoubtedly afraid for his people.

"Admiral, we've reached the first check point, all signs are clear."

He nodded, trying to keep himself calm and steady as they moved through with his desperate plan. The border systems of this unclaimed space had been a risk they had to take. They were low on supplies without allies in a galaxy full of cutthroats. Weeks before, they would have never thought about doing something like this, but a recent attack quickly changed what could and could not be done. He knew the risks, seeing as most Turian fleets were willing to fire on them to uphold the law. In rare instances, patrol fleets would let them pass as long as they were quick about things, but those came once in a cycle. With luck being a fickle thing for them, Rael was banking on meeting no one and leaving like a ghost.

Standing at the helm of his live-ship as it entered the system first before the rest of the fleet did. Though this was more noticeable than a couple ships, they simply didn't have the space and the resources to send one ship at a time. If anything, more ships meant more security in case they did have those unsavory meetings. Each ship weighed on Rael and the more he looked upon his fellow cursed and homeless brethren, the more he felt a noose hanging near his neck. He would remain strong, but how long would their strength last before they were swallowed up.

"Admiral Zorah!" a quarian naval officer stated loudly, "We have something on our scanners!"

Zorah looked around the dimly lit bridge to find the Quarian. When he did, he locked right on the officer, "Ships? I'm hoping they haven't seen us."

"Nothing is coming on our communications . . . something is off."

"Tell the fleet to hold," he commanded, and like a well-oiled machine, every vessel held their position. Their practice made the process quick and efficient, but Rael was wondering how far practice could stop a ship from detecting a fleet.

A couple minutes of waiting came and went. As the officers on his bridge began doing their jobs, the same naval man turned to Rael, "I'm reading council patrol identifications. There's also a message coming for us. I believe we may have just been noticed."

He took a deep breath as he heard this. They were technically supposed to have finished scouring this part of the sector, but perhaps he had the information wrong. Still, things were showing promise; a message was better than mass accelerator cannons in his book any day. He motioned his hand, telling the man to decode the message. Rael folded his arms as he tried to listen.

Strangely enough, distortion was what greeted him, followed by words that he did not recognize at first, "-A. . . we . . .-el . . . d-. . –ah."

"What's going on?"

"Message seems distorted. I believe their communications relays might be damaged."

He pondered just a bit before he gave another order, "We're moving forward, have the rest stay back."

The order processed and the live ship moved along towards the patrol fleet at a brisk pace. It seemed agonizingly slow for Rael, but as time passed more and more, more things began to come to light. First was the noticeable amount of debris starting to drift towards them as they moved around each bit with care driven skill. From what he could tell, they were parts of a ship, most of which had been singed which meant some form of heat having affecting them. As they got closer, it was clear that some of the parts were even from Turian ships and visuals even confirmed larger vessels in the distance. Things began to sink in as he looked around. The dead ships, the distorted message, the drifting corpses . . .

"We're in a graveyard," he said quietly. The others began to get deathly quiet as he pulled up his omni-tool.

"All ships, move towards our position. Prepare to look for any survivors."

Rael looked on at the scene of destruction with wonder, awe, and even a little bit of fear. Who could have systematically destroyed this Turian fleet without their own dead? Surely there should have been other ships that were in the scuffle. A part of him rationalized that the winners had been quick to salvage their own parts and leave, but that would have meant the Turian vessels would have been salvaged as well. Instead, they were left out there in the middle of space, still holding good weaponry and parts to boot.

It was only when another officer began to talking that he snapped himself out of his thoughts, "Excuse me?"

"Sir, know this is strange, but I think our maps are out of date."

"How so?"

The female officer looked at her omni-tool and paused, "I . . . well, according to our maps, we should also be seeing Relay 314 . . . but I can't get a trace of it."

Rael did not say a word, only keeping his fear to himself as he walked out of the bridge. Pulling out his own omni-tool, his shaking voice came forth for only a several moments. His spirit would hold . . . for now.

"All admirals meet with me on the Rayya."

* * *

**Two days later**

* * *

"Councilor Tevos, do you have any idea on how to retrieve the missing dreadnought?"

"Do you have any idea who attacked the patrol fleet?"

"Why are the survivors not available to talk with?"

"Do you believe this is a response to the growing "

"Is this a potential terrorist-"

"Back off, you leeches," a voice said cutting through the crowd of reporters. The gravelly tone was loud enough to silence some members, but seconds were all that were needed to recover their senses.

"Councilor Sparatus, any comments coming out from the Prim-"

"Our comments will be kept to a minimum, but I think I've already made myself clear. I will not be answering anything until we have things in order. Good day, and good bye."

The darker Turian councilor was not to be trifled with. Indeed, even with his light tattoos adorning his face, some said that venom and fire leaked from every little crack and crevice in his plate-like skin that made him as crimson as the sun itself. His blue outfit did little to color his attitude, though it did look good on high ranking Turian like himself.

Tevos also adorned a typical outer wear that accentuated her elegance, but remained sensible for the occasion. She had remained quiet as Sparatus came up from behind her; after all, the Turian councilor was vocal enough for the press and she needed little to show otherwise. Valern was already waiting for the two of them and since they still had to go into another elevator, both she and Sparatus would have plenty of time to talk.

Never the less, the walk to said elevator was loud and obnoxious as the reporters hounded them with questions and possible answers. Instinct dictated they shout back or calm the press, but Tevos refrained from responded. She too was curious by all the circumstances, what with the strange appearance of the Quarians. As soon as they stepped inside their ride, the room shuddered slightly before ascending upward, doors nearly vacuum sealing them away from the loud crowd. Tevos shifted to face a wall with Sparatus moving to her side to do the same. The quiet was unbearable and it was only a matter of time before the Asari spoke.

"How are the survivors," she asked trying to remain as respectful as possible as she kept her gaze away from him, "Any news on their recovery."

Sparatus remained firm and upright as his posture usually was, "They're being treated by the best that Palavan has. Other than that, I know as much as you do."

Tevos narrowed her eyes, but didn't follow up. She had expected more coming today, but then again, this was who he was. Of all the years she knew him, Tevos never saw her fellow council member get anything but aggravated or annoyingly head strong. It didn't hurt to try and expect the unexpected . . . but she supposed things were surprising enough as it was.

The entirety of the galactic community had exploded nearly 24 hours prior to that moment due in part by sheer luck. Quarians had gone around the relay 314 area to potentially look for resources or to rest in a quiet area. Instead, what they found was a graveyard of Turian ships, only just recently destroyed by an unknown entity. Worse yet, they found that a certain relay was missing from all accounts.

A part of her was glad that they had come around. Her sources told her that the Turians had been speaking with them, but they lost communications before things could be sorted out. Curiously enough, she found that the information discussed was placed under a complete air of secrecy, which made Tevos question things.

In any case, the Quarians were quick to inform the Turians and despite the normal animosity that the Hierarchy had, the Turians showed a surprising amount of restraint, even giving the Quarians supplies and, in a rare twist, even gave them a sizable ship for the Migrant fleet to use. Why they hadn't immediately questioned the nomads was anyone's guess, but most chalked it up to the situation. None of the Quarians ships had been damaged and with a dreadnought in the patrol group, the Quarians should have lost a significant portion of their fleet. In addition, it simply didn't make sense that the Quarians would help the survivors if they themselves had attacked the Turian fleet.

On the other hand, Tevos was still hearing whispers in her head, reminding her that the Turians were hiding something. Generosity was definitely not their strong suit and if they were kind enough to give supplies and a ship to Quarians of all people, they might have had an idea of what was happening.

As soon as the elevator opened up, Sparatus stepped forward with Tevos following close behind. The hall leading up to their meeting room was filled to the brim with C-Sec guards. Each of them were dressed for combat and nearly all of them Turian. The door opened and closed behind them in a decisive thunk. Valern had already sat in her designated seat putting her cold steeling eyes to good use.

Both Sparatus and Tevos sat in their own seats. The table was made to be in the shape of the triangle. By having each councilor placed on the middle each side, each member had plenty of space for their arms. Tevos always found the extra space to be soothing and representative of the council's equality.

"Sparatus, Tevos," Valern gave a small nod to the two of them, "How have you all been."

"I am doing well. Thank you for asking Valern."

Sparatus didn't say anything, only sitting down to get things started. He seemed more interested in starting the meeting as he looked between the two others at the table. Tevos was still seating herself when Sparatus started up.

"As you are probably aware of, Valern, our fleet has information regarding the attacks on our patrol fleet. We believe it to be a hostile race has destroyed the relay and obliterated the TSD Abolis with the very weapon that instigated the destruction."

Valern was nodding while Tevos found herself blinking. While Valern was trying to glean more information from what little was said, Tevos was stunned with thoughts of this new race. Surely, there must have been some misunderstanding somewhere.

"So then," Valern's voice came up, "This is an interesting first to have heard of in my lifetime."

A nod came from Tevos, having listened to Valern's quip, "Quite . . . Sparatus, how much do we know about this . . . possible threat."

Sparatus nodded and went straight to the point, "The message we received from Captain Vennil was a direct line to the Primarch. Communications were cut short, but he did get us this information."

Three taps on the Omni-tool sparked a blue light coming from the center of their table. From the light came three screens, one for each councilor and on each screen came pictures with detail and quality varying from blurry and vague scans, to clearer shapes within the darkness of space. Red lights were the most noticeable, but more often than not, each member of the forum was looking at the information in a different light to those next to them.

"That ship looks as though it's alive . . ." The Asari muttered, "The shape of the ship changes with every picture."

"Slightly, it could just be movement, Tevos. I'm more curious as to how they were able to take down our Dreadnoughts."

"I'm thinking the seventh image will explain that," Valern's voice said, cutting through the two. Said seventh image soon found their way onto their screens. The picture was unclear, but from the looks of what could be seen, a projectile had shot itself from the alien ship. This seventh image happened to be the last of the picture and as the Asari councilor looked around for more, Sparatus came out from the wet work.

"These seven pictures were the only bits of data that were mined from the other ships. The rest has been scrambled, fried, and lost where ever these things took the dreadnaught."

Tevos nodded, "So we have an unknown enemy . . . with a single ship of relative unknown size-"

"Unknown?" Sparatus questioned, "We have details from the ship computers. We know they're at least half the size of the TDS sent with the patrol fleet."

Tevos was quick to answer back, "But said size changes once the projectile was fired."

"We could be dealing with a space faring organism," Valern finally inputted, "I'm seeing the same of what Tevos says and more. If the ship is a living breathing organism, it might explain why we have no dreadnought left."

It was there that the Turian councilor drew the line. "Spirits, you can't be serious. There was a clear sign of an explosion."

"Then please explain the lack of shrapnel or debris from your dreadnought. Any explosion large enough to vaporize a ship the size of the Abolis would have destroyed the surrounding ships just as efficiently, not to mention the escape pods designed for short ranged travel and inferior thrusters compared to said ships. Of course, that's not saying much."

Sparatus slammed his talon on the table and stood up, fury lining the edge of his voice as he shouted, "I will not be mocked by such ridiculous theories nor will I have you questioning our ships."

"We helped design those ships Sparatus. If anything, we should be the one embarrassed by these events."

"No, you're too busy trying to make this a science experiment, as always. You'd rather have your fingers all over some new test subject rather than destroy what should have been removed years before its time."

"Don't you dare-"

"Councilors, please. Let us all remain calm here." Tevos finally said trying to get between the two parties, "This is not a time to make enemies between allies. We are all here and we see a new threat to the galaxy. Civility must remain on this ground."

For a moment, the two councilors staring at Tevos turned back to each other, ever so eager to go at each other's figurative throats. Alas, they found the time to be meaningless, Tevos' words having worked its magic. They both quickly sat down as silence took the room. With both Turian and Salarian representatives mulling about, Tevos took back the stand by going over both's theories.

"I believe both your ideas have merits. Since there was a hint of heat scarring from some of the ships, we can assume some use of explosions. The ship also changed shape with the projectile, thus there is some merit there as well. There must have been a unique situation regarding this ship or else the ship would have easily cleaned up whatever was present."

Both councilors nodded, while Tevos sat back to open up all the visual data. Numbers was mostly in Valern's territory, she the Asari avoided the stuff. Numbers made her head spin anyways and thus she mulled over the pictures. More and more, she felt herself mesmerized by what she was seeing, imagining whatever this race of beings was.

What sort of aliens were things strange . . . strange creatures?

And would she be prepared to meet such abnormalities?

* * *

**Somewhere Far From the Citadel**

* * *

Rat was displeased

In fact, he was more displeased than usual.

Displeased could describe every little bit he was feeling up in that moment for very little every hit him on a daily basis. Every waking bit of his life tended to feel a bit of displeasure in some shape or form, so this moment had to mean . . . something else. Yes yes, he wasn't just displeased here.

Rat was very displeased.

He looked up while recovering from the dream-memories he had from the brain bug. Said brain bug lay twitching in his hand as most of its abdomen had been severed, the very parts that Rat had gnawed off, chewed into a paste and swallowed into his gut. He breathed as he so usually did when he tried to comprehend everything that his friend had done. Even though this had been the1371st memory meal he had, such experiences were never the same, especially when they came from different people.

Now Rat was incredibly displeased.

As he crushed the rest of the centipede looking creature in his grip, he moved out of the room and down the metal hall. Lights were low but functioned well enough for him to read the alien letters along the walls. The unfamiliar transcriptions had now begun to shape themselves from incoherent messes into words like "Cafeteria" and "Captain's Quarters." He even knew where to turn to avoid the serious mess that had hit the ship only hours ago. While of no consequence to him, he preferred not having to traverse the openness of space. It would have made things even more displeasing than it was.

Taking the long way, Rat took less time than he had expected. The memories he had calculated that he would take him 14 minutes and 21 seconds for him to get to the core of the ship. It only took him 14 minutes and 10 seconds and that distracted him just long enough to forget why he was displeased.

Red eyes scanned the halls for the destruction while his dark suit blending into the lightless halls. If he managed to come close to a wall, which happened on several occasion when trying to maneuver around destroyed terrain, the red glow from his eyes shined off the wall. His slender form managed to get through every obstacle and he was finally ready to meet up with the others.

And then he saw Slake chewing up the last Turian body that was left on this pitiful vessel of a dreadnought. Suddenly, there was more than just displeasure. A frown lined the young male's face as he looked at his taller friend from within the darkened cargo room.

"Slake," he said in his usual coldness. Others in the room began to shift, barely visible to Rat as they hid in the darkness. Each one looked similar to Slake in build, but they were shorter and had projectile weapons latched onto their backs. They were muscular, all of whom were nearly 6 feet tall and disinterested with Rat's presence.

While Rat was toned, he was slim and barely reached 5'8," a height he had been very keen on given his unusual height compared to his group. Even more strange was just how soft his features were to the other rough jawed and angry looking members to his small task force. Yet despite these differences, Rat remained steadfast and walked forward with purpose. Physicalities aside, when push came to shove, the only thing their kind looked at was the crease that ran down the middle of their jaw. That was marked them . . . that was what defined them.

Each of the other soldiers gave Rat a wide birth as he slowly stepped into the room. The only sounds that came through were his footsteps along with Slake's messy feeding habits. Slake had the same black hair as Rat's, red eyes and crease on his Jaw, but unlike Rat's, his crease split into a y-shape, barely visible in the dark but easy enough to see with Rat's great eye sight. On the other hand, what was visible was Slake's size. The muscular figure was nearly twice as large as Rat.

"Rat," Slake sputtered as the mans grinded flesh, carapace, and bone in his mouth. His voice was deeper than Rat and his strong chin gave him an elderly look. Given where Rat was, it was like a man growling at a child, but both parties knew such a relationship was the farthest from the truth.

Rat stopped a good distance from the towering behemoth, the smaller one kicking a severed, half-eaten limb away from him. Slake sat on a pile of metal cubes that groaned whenever he leaned from side to side. Blood dripped all around him, hitting his combat gear and the area around him in puddles of dark blue. Looking around, Rat grabbed something to nibble on, a hand that had been callously torn off from an arm. Unlike Slake, Rat nibbled only the tip of a finger to gather a taste of what was to come.

"Strange things," Rat said as he observed his meal with his taste buds. His voice was empty, as empty as the void of space itself. While others would have at least shown a hint of emotion like Slake, Rat's voice sounded so hollow, "How are these evolutions."

Slake finished the Turian he held before wiping the blue smears on his face. His jaw remained somewhat split, but after spitting out a long slender bone, the four segments went back into forming a single part.

"They taste like dirt," Slake snarled as he leapt off his seating. The imprint left on the metal boxes was heavy and as his feet hit the ground, Slake stood up to his full height. Compared to Rat, Slake was nearly twice the height of his partner and yet despite this, Rat's body held firm as he looked up at Slake.

"As I recall, you wanted something to consume."

"Bah," he scoffed, "They have nothing for us genetically."

"Master said otherwise," Rat replied obediently, "Master always gets what he wants."

With a growl, the large figure rose to his full height and threw the rest of his meal to the floor, "Let the drones eat it, I'm tired of eating shit."

Almost immediately, these soldiers, having remained cold and silent, turned towards the corpse without another word. The quick sounds of flesh snapping open began the chaos as 8 men collapsed on the dead Turian. Rat took a small glance and saw each and every drone opening their jaw as their eyes turned from normal pupils into a glowing red. Their eyes glowed against bare flesh and solid metal, turning their short escapade for flesh into an orgy of violence. It didn't take long for the flesh to disappear and soon enough, the other drones were going for the left overs, one even slamming his fist into another's face before digging into said drones face.

Slake growled, but didn't comment. He and Rat came walking into the broken, lowlights to check the rest of the ship. As they turned the corner, they lost sight and sound of the others and soon they were talking in silence.

"Did you get any memories for Master?"

Rat nodded, Slake nodding back as Rat continued the conversation, "Their minds were varied, but I gathered all I needed to know. Master will be pleased to know of the progress."

"Tell me that's not their only ship," Slake groaned, "Master took all the murder-farm* before we exploded the weapon."

"Do not worry, Slake. There are more ships, though I doubt we should be looking for more, given our position."

"Hah, fear or cautiousness?"

"Caution. You know I cannot feel fear, Slake."

"You don't feel anything, last I checked."

Rat narrowed his eyes as he peeked over to Slake cocky smirk, "An over exaggeration- you should care to follow my lead on such things."

"Last I checked, Master liked me as well."

"To a point"

"Just ask him when he wakes up then." Slake said as they stopped at a covered corridor. Beyond the wall was the emptiness of space, a vast openness to the darkness. Both Rat and Slake looked at each other, their heads uncovered and the rest of their bodies protected by a black fleshy mesh. With any other race or people, this mesh would do little to protect them, only providing a skin tight form that helped cover up any in appropriate parts. It did, however, do wonder in cold or desert locations, where snow and sand could get into the weirdest of places.

Other than that, these two were relatively unsafe to the exposure of space . . .

"Are we doing anything else?" Slake said as he tapped against the bulky seal, "Did Matriarch want something from the ship?"

"She wanted what Master wanted, information."

Slake grimaced, "All females want is information. I wish Master wasn't allied with the Matriarch."

"We wouldn't even be here without her," Rat responded to which Slake was rolling his eyes.

"Whatever, tell the drones to get back to the ship."

"They'll know to go back. Could I take a walk with you, outside?"

Slake turned to his companion and tilted his head. The man raised an eyebrow, but had a sigh soon afterwards as he turned around.

"The others will think you prefer male companionship."

"And is that bad?"

Slake growled as he finally reached his fist back and slammed it into the seal. It didn't destroy it in one punch, but several more would do the trick, "No, but I'm getting annoyed hearing the other males ask about you."

Slake never did quite catch it, but for a moment in time Rat turned his emotionless gaze into a smile. It was a rare sight, but just as quickly as it appeared, the smile turned back to his normal cold self as Slake began to pierce the veil, his arm pulling back and slamming one last time to create a wall. The vacuum threw Rat off his feet as his face suddenly met the hole.

The result was a messy one as flesh was ripped off the boyish humanoid, his bones refusing to give way as black blood sloshed through the hole. His legs up, the smaller male did not have the muscle power to resist the vacuum's pull.

"This is slightly painful," Rat commented loudly, with a slight bit of alarm. It wasn't that much painful than having a pinch on his backside, but he was stuck nonetheless. Black fluid splattered all around the opening of the vacuum while inch by inch of meat, muscle and tissue was slurped by the darkness of space. Most of the organs in his stomach region ripped itself apart while Rat had the uncomfortable experience of feeling his intestine snake out and wriggling about while holding on for dear life.

Slake growled at the sight, but Rat couldn't tell what sort of expression the larger man had. He looked like he wanted to laugh, but every second he tried, Rat's thick blood splattered on his face. Soon Slake grew tired of the stupidity of the situation and he reared back to give a solid kick.

"THEN MOVE YOU IDIOT."

With one last kick, Slake smashed through the rest of the door, inviting the vacuum and flinging both Slake and Rat into the hollow abyss. Air rushed out to push both individuals, Slake unable to resist the rushing wind. He had planned on grabbing onto the metal while the rest of the air on the ship, but because he had finished it off with a kick, the burst of air had thrown him off his feet and putting him at the mercy of space. Luckily for him, Rat was still holding onto his foot, giving Slake something to shout at . . . or try to shout at. There was no air in space after all.

The empty expression Rat held, but that pushed Slake to get even angrier. Rat recognized the look on Slake's face, but he knew Slake wouldn't punch him right now. Soon enough, Slake was pointing his hand towards the ship, which, by the way, happened to be moving away from them . . . or was it the other way around, Rat's head was fuzzy at the moment. So much for walking on the surface of the ship, they were doing more floating than walking right then and there.

But Rat had little to worry about and just as he looked down at his bony ribs and fleshless covered stomach, flesh and sinew began to weave itself back together. It was said that Rat's body regenerated like an art form, each vein and bit of flesh moving to piece itself together as strokes of paint from an artist's brush. When one began, another started to flow seamlessly with the other; Rat enjoyed the feeling and the look of it as well. Soon, his body regenerated every organ lost to his form and by the latter parts of his regeneration; multiple parts grew back in a choreographed dance moving in and out, dipping and diving with one another. Even the skin tight clothing sewed back together as Rat shrugged towards Slake.

Now the only problem right now was getting back to the ship; Slake needing to finish a job while Rat wanting to walk along the surface. This event had become a little more than inconvenience and another possibility was starting to loom on them. Rat caught the red and black outline faster than Slake had, but both of them quickly came to the same conclusion. They both desperately tried flailing towards the dreadnought. Unfortunately for them, such an effort was futile and they were picked up by their ship.

* * *

"I don't even know where to begin."

Rat was visibly grimacing at the comment, while Slake growled. They remained standing upright, hands to their sides as a figure marched back and forth in front of them. A strong light came down from the sides of the hallway, the metal halls gleaming under the lights to show a darkened hue. Fat and bulbous bugs, shaped like oversized and bloated ticks, crawled about in front of their hallway. Three happened to be cleaning the hallway outside of the airlock and when one tried to come towards the trio, it stopped suddenly before turning right back around to avoid them.

The clanks and thuds of numerous insect feet were calming for Rat as was the familiar smell of their home. Flesh was apparent along the walls, but metal was the predominant make of this ship. A distinct hum ran through the ship and if one listened closely, sometimes one could hear the heartbeat of the ship. Indeed, what else would they make their space faring ships out of?

"Slake, I understand." Rat quickly fell out of his entranced stupor to look back at his aggressor, "He is an idiot, but you Rat . . . WHY? You're supposed to calm this . . . this imbecile."

Rat tilted his head; the answer was obvious and innocent enough so he decided to say it in whole, "I wanted to go for a walk outside. I finished my tasks and I made the mistake of walking too close to the hole Slake created."

"Ugh," an audible hand slap to the face, "Why does Master make me have to take care of you idiots."

Slake chuckled, "Says you, slave Driver."

Driver's eyes narrowed, his long face and snake-like eyes accentuating his frustration as he gave Slake an angry sneer. Of the Trio, Driver managed to be the middle ground of the two, being taller than Rat and shorter than Slake. Due to his height, Driver looked the thinnest what with his skinny arms and legs. Slender fingers remained over his thin brow to massage his narrow temples, the nick name having done its work to frustrate Driver.

"Don't call me that."

"Slave Driver," Slake repeated and Driver began more of his pacing.

"That tongue of yours is going to get your worthless brain removed some day."

"Until then, I'll use it to torture you. Perhaps I'll watch you kill yourself in a hilarious fashion."

Driver rolled his eyes, "Please, if I wanted to kill myself, I would have climbed up to your ego and jumped down to your IQ."

"HAH," Rat said forcing the two others to jump. They turned their attention to Rat as Rat gave them his open eyed and emotionless expression.

"That statement was funny. That is why I laughed. I am sorry. Please continue."

For a second, Both Slake and Driver were stunned, utterly baffled by attack on their senses. They . . . what could they even do? Rat had given an opinion of comedy and now . . . both of them shook their heads in unison. More seconds passed and before long, they were looking back at each other before they finally straightened. Slake gave a last confused glance before Driver went back to normal . . . and normal meant going back to serious business.

"Just . . . just give me a status report."

Rat nodded as he close his eyes. His eyes then clenched further, straining as though he were feeling pain somewhere. Indeed, he was feeling pain and before long, his throat was bulging abnormally. The bump took another precious second to move all the way up into his mouth and sure enough, he opened his mouth to present his newly made brain bug, fatter than most as it contained a full extensive report than just vaguely extracted memories. Rat handed Driver his bug, saliva dripping off the bug. Driver took care with making sure this engorged bug didn't slip out of his hand while Slake sighing.

"Lucky little bastard."

"How so?" Rat replied

Slake blinked, "I . . . nothing."

With a shrug, Rat rubbed his stomach before burping. Making brain bugs always gave him some extraneous gas and unlike others of his kind, he had no use for such things. Slake coughed, clearing his throat while he spoke as firmly. Reports would not be one to joke around with for Slake.

"I've secured the unexplored parts of the ship that Master left and consumed most of the corpses. These creat- Turians things . . . are unable to exist outside of a vacuum and either died by the Master's hand or by a lack of air. All 20 corpses I ate indicated a different genetic structure than the usual left sided base of most humanoids. It was right hand sided rather than left handed and the proteins created were unique."

"Useful?"

"No. They did the same as left sided amino acids, just in different ways. They have no unique biological advantages than the ones we already found and I don't think we'd gain any resources from emulating their genetic structure."

"Understood, no potential evolutions from these creatures; the Master will be pleased with such news. Continue."

Slake nodded, "Their metal and weaponry are weak, but their ships have a resource we do not have or use."

"That is called element Zero," Rat said as he slid into the conversation, "I doubt we will find uses for it. It is more abundant than Terrasite, but Terrasite is far too efficient for us to change our technological path. All details are in the report."

"And I will take a look once I put it into the archive. Slake, go on."

He didn't need anything else to do so, "The ships they use were mostly made of the metallic substance. Again, worthless to exploit and worthless to look into; I believe this race to be a worthless species."

"That is an opinion. Save it for later, Slake," Driver said, maintaining his cold and professional attitude. Slake, on the other hand, had to comment.

"The Master killed as many of the Turians as he could on the ship. I doubt he wanted them to stay alive."

"Different objective, Slake. He was satiating a bloodlust. Master has that right to do that . . . especially when it comes to the safety of this-"

"Fine, fine, I'm done with the report." Slake said trying to end things quickly. "What are we gonna to do with the ship?"

"We need to remove it," Rat said, "We do not need it . . . and they might be able to track us if we take it with us."

Slake shrugged while Driver nodded. It was both clean and efficient, satisfying all three's outlooks on the matter. While Slake was looking forward getting rid of insects and their tasteless corpses, Driver and Rat were on page strategically. They had a duty to this ship and while they wished to keep their inhabitants happy, they also needed to keep them safe.

With the report done, Driver looked back at the brain bug and back at the pair. He looked fed up and still a little annoyed with what had gone on, but the result was satisfying nonetheless. Rat recognized the look as the "Finally-Dear-God-I'm-Done" look and as much of a stickler as Driver had been for work, he had no joy in said work. Still, that didn't stop the thin man from feeling somewhat gracious and a small smirk hit his face as he turned around.

"I will be sending this off to the hive and the archive. Matriarch wants Rat in her chambers. Please don't keep her waiting . . . and don't be stupid Slake."

With a nod, or two nods, all three split off with Rat moving for the Matriarch's chambers. Slake moved opposite of Rat's direction and Rat watched Slake go the same usual distance before heading off towards the Blood Hole. Rat never understood the enjoyment of such a place . . . and perhaps he never would. Slake did say he needed to satiate a hunger . . .

A right and forward as people joked, given the ship's structure. Though the outside looked to be a complex shape of an insect, the inside was circular with several structures intersecting like orbits of a solar system. With this simple build, everyone could find what they wanted to with just a bit of walking and walking barely required any sort of direction. The inner center was both the smallest, but most important. Several of the ship's core parts like the heart and gut remained there, along with its nerve base to control the ship. That was also where the Matriarch lay.

Rat's favorite was the ring closest to the inner one and while he didn't want the Matriarch to be kept too long . . . Rat couldn't resist visiting. He took an early turn to enter the second last ring and walked a fair bit, carefully maneuvering around any insects walking by his feet. Here, the insects were swarming like ants while carrying small bits of flesh or even orbs of water, wrapped in fleshy tissue. Getting closer to the birthing chambers only increased the amount of bugs and soon enough, Rat's footsteps no longer clanked on metal and instead squished against heavy walls of flesh.

Gone was the utilitarian hallway and in its place came a stretched out and curved room who's walls were filled to the brim with clear bubbled pods. It was like being in the stomach of some beast, with thinner walls of flesh showing off a distinct vein or two that pulsed with color. Of all the rooms and parts of the ship, this chamber remained one of the largest sectors. Even when he tried to look up at the ceiling, he found most of the lights down below never reached towards the top, though the insects and their pouches of food or water did have sheen to them.

These pods stretched towards the ceiling and covered every inch of the wall, some pods needing a climb to reach them. The order of birth had been left to right so those on the left were squirming with naked bodies within pools of pink. The pods on the right, on the other hand were still blood red with only a tiny fetus and its beating heart. Here, the insects moved to their respective pods and unwrapped their packages and squished it inside each little egg with Rat watching on in wonder. For whatever reason, he could never stop watching the process of feeding and gestation. It was . . . it was . . .

Beautiful

Not a word he would normally use; Rat never emoted or placed his opinion on something. This was one of the rare moment he could be himself and before long, he found his body walking towards one of the pods.

A crunch threw him off and Rat backed away to see black blood and an untouched orb of goo. His foot scattered most of the other insects, but the one he seemed to crush looked as though it hadn't noticed him. Not wanting the food to go to waste, Rat grabbed the orb while leaning down and scraped up the corpse of the insect. The insects were always crunchy with a hint of salt and sourness to them. They would have been akin to potato chips, if his kind ever ate them. Unlike potato chips, however, Rat's meal gave him a directive with a small distinct voice. The food needed to go to pod 31-18-49-88B. That was all the way up, but Rat found no fear in such a task.

Since the pods were harder than they looked, Rat's shoes squished against each one without much problem to the inhabitant inside. The trouble came with grip of his upper half, but he managed by digging his knife into the flesh. This knife, like all knives of the flesh, was unique to him and only him. The shape curved with the sharp edge being shorter than the other. The back side, and larger side, was lined with messy rows of jagged teeth like shapes. These teeth hung on to the knife and sprang out in as lively as some maw of a predator, indeed, each edge and fang intersected one another, sometimes forcing two edges to rub at each other with a third going between them and so on. He may as well have pulled it out of the mouth of a beast and he might as well have preferred it

It was annoying to have to grow his knife, but he couldn't deny the utility of his knife. With its teeth, he was able to sink it into the fleshy space between each pod, gripping him to the normally slippery flesh. When the wall began to curve against him, the knife did just as much, if not more and before long, he found himself hanging completely upside down. The drop down distracted him for just a second as he tried to predict how many bones he would break.

Once he got to the pod, he bit into the food to pop the protective surface. Once the goo dripped out, he had it press against the surface of the pod. The pod may as well have had a mouth because it slurped up the goop and finished every drop along with the fleshy package. Rat couldn't help but poke the egg, the half formed creature inside shivering to the touch. Another rare moment, amusement

With his job done, Rat wriggled the knife little by little and each shake had the teeth squishing and slicing out of the ever regenerating walls. He was practically swinging left and right by the time the final tooth slid out. Momentum aside, Rat found the fall to be joyous and happily accepted his organ splattering fate. The dizziness got to him after he found himself flipping a tenth time, the ground seeming a little farther than before.

When his body did stop, Rat felt his leg held up in the air as his bones creaked while holding firm. Something had caught him by the leg while he had spun and while he was slightly grateful for not needing to regenerate his organs again, he couldn't identify his savior. His dizziness soon stopped affecting his senses; it was hard not to notice the long shadow right next to his head. Judging by how far up he was the figure had grabbed him nearly 12 feet up. That left several choices in taller males such as Slake, females that would be inspecting the area, or . . .

"Hello, Matriarch," Rat said in a calm voice, "It seems we could not meet in your room."

Despite being draped in a large, dark cloak, Matriarch Leium's deep gaze echoed a burning, passionate crimson that seemed to glow from the darkness of the cloak. No part of her remained uncovered by the cloak as every inch of her tall regal form was shrouded by the dark cloth. All knew the rumors of Matriarch Leium's attire, that she had sewn her clothes with the skin of her enemies and dipped every inch of the bloody surface into a vat of her own jet-black blood. Perhaps that was why she smelled so sweet whenever she was around; perhaps that was why his Master loved the Matriarch.

"No, it does not," the Matriarch's voice echoed off the walls. Her voice was haunting, graceful as though it were dancing with death itself. Her soothing voice came with a smile adorned her lips and before long, Rat found himself pet on the head by a single thin finger poking from her cloaked arm. Despite the stories and long list of Terrors* the Matriarch had earned, the female always presented herself to be a gentle giant rather than destructive warmonger. Her soft grip had simply hardened around Rat's shin just for the moment he had been falling down. Now that he was alright, the light grip barely held Rat in place and he quickly took the time to wriggle out of her slender fingers. His face still planted on the floor, however.

"Ow . . . forgive me. I wished to see this place again great mother."

Leium's smile beamed as she chuckled. As she gave him a gentle hand wave, the long cloak shook with her movement, "I see no wrong here, Rat. These birthing chambers intrigue me as well. Thank you for taking the time to feed one of them."

Rat nodded to his tall Matriarch, the female practically towering over him. Indeed, in his earlier years, Rat had been known to hide under the Matriarch's dress for both practical and . . . ones that were less so. With her robe reaching down and widening towards her feet, it was a simple matter of just making sure he could walk in tandem with her own legs. Matriarch Leium loved having at least 5 or 7 legs at a time though it could sometimes vary to 4-8 when she was especially careful or wanting to run quickly.

Today looked to be a 5-7 leg day and each of them clacked along like the legs of a spider. Once he was on the ground, Rat continued to stare at the pods, though he was far less inclined to climb them. Making his way to one kept Rat back on his toes and this time, he managed to stop himself from squishing any feeding grubs. As he placed his hand over the pod he had been watching, the inhabitant trembled, but soon enough, the pod kept still for Rat. He couldn't help but place his face against the shell and feel the warmth.

"Matriarch, do drone dream?"

The matriarch marched towards Rat and each tap of her feet clacked on the ground in a slowed fashion similar to skittering of an insect. The dress seemed to bleed with her movements, the lady pulling up her front part of her cloak like a skirt.

"Have you ever asked Driver or Slake that?"

"Yes . . ." Rat answered, but quieted by the end of his word, "Slake said he has never dreamed. Driver does not find dreams effective."

"Then do you dream?"

Rat paused at the question. "Yes, I do."

"What of," the Matriarch lowered herself as she put her ear down on the very egg that Rat was listening to. Though the sound inside had been muffled by the harder shell of the pod, she too could hear a whisper, an inkling of a voice. Rat was closing his eyes as though he were trying to imagine himself back in the very place that birthed him. His fingers stroked the surface and before long, his attention moved back to the egg.

"I think he will grow up to be like us . . . me . . . and Slake and Driver . . . an abnormal."

Matriarch pulled away, standing back up, "Is that so? How can you be so sure he will be an abnormal, little creature?"

"I feel it," Rat's eyes were closed, but that didn't stop the Matriarch from smiling at Rat. She continued watching over Rat and had a quiet chuckle to herself as she looked all around.

"Just that one, one out of so many?"

"For now . . ." He opened his eyes, "One out of 716 drones is not bad. Only 200 of them are finished growing. This one has yet to grow"

"Perhaps. I'm still waiting to hear what you dream of."

"Me?" Rat continued touching the surface of the egg, getting ever closer as he curled up to the pod, "I dream of an endless sea wrapping around me. I cannot breathe, I cannot sleep, I cannot eat. I see the surface, the bright light of the sun. My skin is burning while my flesh flakes off my bones."

"Do you swim in that sea?" Leium said as she hovered over Rat, her fingers parting his dark hair as a mother would.

"No, I . . . it reminds me of my pod. I can feel the edges stretching at my shape. I do my best to stay still and the liquid holds me in place."

"And how does that feel?"

". . . warm . . . but my chest feel heavy. I think it is comforting."

More silence came and his eyes did not keep off the pod for even a single second.

"I have changed my mind. This pod will become an Aethus. He will evolve and he will learn to swim."

"Oh? And what of you, little one, my little sweet Rat. Will you swim?"

"No," Rat stood up on his feet, "Master swims for me."

* * *

Heavy breathing and loud grunts filled the room as hands upon hands reached forth from flesh covered sacs. Though thick and leathery, each creature bound to these strange pulled off their fleshy covers with fingers alone to tear and rip and bleed with reckless abandon. Countless scowls and countless roars filled the room as the crimson lights around them settled. Soon enough, their eyes blazed the very color of their ancestry and red eyes glowed deep within the dark corners of the room.

These males, these muscular nude shapes, soon began to check themselves for any faults in their bodies, any loose ends to remove and reshape in their new awakening. Long journeys for the red eyed men were not kind ones and the only fate one could receive being stuck on a vessel for so long and with nothing to do would be death. As such, they locked themselves away and trapped themselves until the time was right. They trusted their fellow clansmen, after all; that was the only people they could trust at this point.

Within the darkness, each manner of shape and size of male moved about. Some were younger and some were older. Some were taller and some were shorter. Some were thin and lean while some were bulky and muscled. None had an inch of extraneous fat to them and no male in that room even knew the term overweight.

Of course, just because these creatures were physical quite stunning to the average one for our kind, the males in the room were still . . . males. In the corner of the room, one skinnier man found his arm frustratingly uncooperative, so much so that it had failed to moved when he commanded it. Several others, young and old heckled him off and he growled back in return.

"La'oi Desh*, your arm is feeble."

The man with the limp arm responded in kind, lunging for the commenter and opening his jaw just to tear at the man's neck. Flesh and blood was spilled, but no male found this act disturbing or destructive. Instead, there was only more raucous laughter, jeering and howling from all sides as people started to call out winners.

"BLEED, RIP TEAR," they shouted. The man with the limp arm grabbed said arm and tore it off and ate into his own severed limb before a new one began to grow. The commenter did the same as he beat at his chest to get his blood pumping and his jaw opening. Though the man's neck had been strewn open, the black blood gushed forward without much thought as he let flesh mend and muscles weave back to normal. Blood lust was at its highest here and no sane man of their kind would ever let themselves go without a little bit of action.

But before each and every single man was tearing each other, the lights of the room suddenly pushed forth to focus themselves towards one of the walls. No one took a second for one look granted them their answer, their calling, their Matriarch.

Matriarch Leium stood high, towering even her males with Rat sitting on her right shoulder. Slake had been lucky to reach the height and weight of the stronger males and Driver could pass as average. Rat, on the other hand, never did lose his status as an abnormal or evolved drone. Even as he sat right with the Matriarch, old habits could not die hard as males looked at him hungrily; drone meat was a common form of taste sustenance after all.

Luckily for him, no one dared move towards the Matriarch; they were all too busy saluting either by forming their respective knives and then cutting themselves from their right breast towards the center of their chest . . . or doing it with their fingers.

"Ya'mack thro'va Deshik*," one of the males said, "It is good to wake in your presence, great Matriarch."

Others growled in agreement, riled up by the recent bloodlust. None had their eyes bleed true red, but they were certainly getting to that point. The grand Matriarch retained her smile as she watched the rest of the clansman rally to her form, pulling their bloodied knives or fingers out as they gave gleeful looks of hunger. As she stood proudly over her subjects, they watched with full attentiveness. They would not miss another word.

"I trust you have slept well."

"Al-Voh-Den!*" they said in unison.

"Good, for we have come to our final destination. Rejoice brethren; rejoice for our time has come. We will leave this husk for our new home."

With black sludge pumping through their veins, all that stood silently among the crowd bellowed, howled, and screamed to their hearts content. The wait finally over, the naked creatures quickly began to expel black fluids from the pores. Within seconds, the black liquids hardened against each male's skins forming the very skin tight outfit that Rat and his fellow abnormals wore while storming the ship. This fleshy fibers stretched and screetched along with their hosts as they covered the nakedness.

"Who are you?"

"We are Aethus."

"And who do you serve."

"No one."

"Gooooooood . . . Aethus Rises."

"Aethun Vasha Voh-den*" they chanted, "Aethun Vasha Voh-den! Aethun Vasha Voh-den!"

* * *

"I see you have woken the males," said a voice within the darkened corners of the unlit room. The chants and lively thumps of footsteps roared through out the vessel, undisturbed in all its glory. Rat held close his Matriarch's shoulders for he stepped on grounds the likes of males would never be allowed to step on.

"Welcome to reality once more. You are all alive."

Unlike the rough growls and rips that came with the males, here were more . . . slippery sounds. Slithering and deep rumbles mixed as they came to surround her. Males would never bother to do such thing to a Matriarch, but these were no males. As each female's eyes opened to take in the sight of Matriarch Leium, so too was the room basked in slight glows of crimson red.

Rat felt off any time he met a female that happened to be different from Leium. Males mostly retained to a humanoid shape with varying degrees of change here and there to distinguish them. While Rat had trouble identifying other males and understanding their personalities, but at least they didn't scare Rat every time he saw one. Aethus females were worlds different from their male counterparts and the worst part was simply seeing how easily they could crush a normal male on a whim.

One female snaked next to Matriarch Leium so silently that Rat barely noticed the divided face before her tongue was sliding up his back. Upon feeling this terrifying sensation, Rat moved to place his back against Leium's cheek before the snake like woman pulled away. Given the size and courage she had with being so near, it wasn't difficult to determine that the snake female was a Matriarch like Leium.

"Such a delicious drone, Matriarch Leium. Do share him with me when you get the chance."

Leium stood her ground, turning her head towards the snake woman before lifting her finger, "Touch him again and I will personally skin you alive."

Snickering came rolling about as the snake woman backed away, there were others like the snake woman in size and hunger, but none were willing to face off against the great Matriarch. As the clan head, she held control and that control could only be seized with a proper challenge. It still didn't give Rat too much security as even as the snake female was pulling back, the shapes of a many faced woman, a tendril covered body and many mouthed woman reminded him where he stood. Drones and Males stood on one side, with abnormal drones reaching a status similar to normal males. Drones could even become actual Aethus, though those moments were rare.

Females, on the other hand, were in a world of their own.

Off in the corners, there were the younger ones, still shaped similarly to the male Aethus with the humanoid shapes. They were already clothed, with their clothes being just as skin tight as the males were. Chest wise, depending on the size and shape of a female's breasts, they either had a bump or . . . some elected to cut their's off and grow it later and as was the case right then and there. Luckily for Rat, he never had to deal with such a problem and he hoped he never had to.

While Males reached maturity quicker, females outpaced them in growth and strength, being twice as big as the largest male upon Matriarchy. Of course, while the males had their own world and perils, so did the females. Rat had trouble understanding male hierarchy already, what with how things went between warriors and survivors: Tradition this, murder that, doing other thing while finding that. While he may have been curious with the female and their lives, he definitely knew that asking right then and there would have been a death sentence. He was already trying to avoid death stares let alone hungry mouths from Matriarchs and Scions*.

"Have we arrived oh Mistress of Skin?"

Even under her cowl, her glaring eyes were painfully noticeable as she looked into the one that spoke of her nickname. It was a Scion; the girl was not yet a Matriarch, but she was quite old to have developed a unique body. The Scion mouth had been removed . . . or better yet, replaced by a pair of insect mandibles. Curiously enough, the scion's hair was long enough to reach her chin and when it twitched ever so slightly, the strands were cut only the grow back. Leium looked thoroughly unimpressed with her vocal combatant and she soon shot back.

"We have almost arrived, Te'lin."

"And you've let the males walk out first then?" the many faced Matriarch said from her numerous mouths, "Why do you intend to make this difficult."

The snake slithered back around Leium, "Perhaps we should try to find her Alpha Male. No doubt her prime whore would enjoy a lit-"

The movement had been so quick that Rat didn't even feel it, and he had been the one on her shoulder! In a single second, Leium had pulled her arm and sliced the snake woman's face in half in a vertical fashion. A screech came from the lady's lips, but Leium didn't seem to care. She had made sure to cut the female deep enough as to allow for a more difficult regeneration. Bone was harder to heal and excruciatingly painful, especially when trying to replaces bits of grey matter along with it.

With that, both Scions and Matriarchs pulled back with laughter as well as silent respect. The Mistress of Skin did not receive her name without merit.

"You may leave this room. Enjoy yourselves for we shall find our home within the hour."

Screams of ecstasy and freedom rang out and some even whispered blessings.

"Aethun Vasha Voh-den."

* * *

Before long, the whole ship was abuzz with luscious moans, bloodthirsty howls or distinct screams of terror. It had been a long time since such activity had come to pass within the halls as the normal drones were never as raucous or lively as their masters. The Matriarch's chambers might have shielded Rat from the violence and sensual stimulations that night, but it could not prevent him from hearing all that was going on.

Nevertheless, it was understandable, Rat showing not even an inkling of fear. He was unfazed by the goings on between males and females, and whether it was passion, lust, or rage, all Aethus needed to let off their steam. Being in stasis for so long kept these monuments of flesh cuffed and held down by sheer force of will. Stress was acquired and the only one that managed to remain out of it was the Matriarch herself. All jokes aside for her time out, Rat could only imagine what Leium was going through and by the time they were in their chambers, she slowly descended her form downwards to rest.

And now they were alone once more, the Rat with the Mistress of Skin in a wide open chamber, just as dark as the last two rooms. The few light bugs that crawled along the walls did so while barely providing any such glow. Rat had wandered several times here alone and each time he had felt something watching him. Now that he was here with Matriarch Leium, he was quite glad the feeling was gone as she let him lay on his lap.

"Do you know what I dream of, Rat?"

"No," he stated, "I do not."

"I want to dream of freedom, where our blood means little and our back can be broken."

"Do they not break?"

She paused, "They do . . . but by other hands."

Rat nodded trying to silence out all distractions while he listened, "Do you miss Master?"

"Miss? Perhaps I do miss him. He always seems to be sleeping every time I want to talk."

"He is tired. I can hear him right now."

"Really?" she leaned down, letting her eyes look into Rat's, "And what is he saying."

"He's saying he wants to kill something."

"Typical Atlas, always impatient with things. Did he find out where the ship came from?"

"I did . . . and it seems we might have stirred a hornet's nest."

"Truly?" this had her smiling, "And what sort of hornets are these creatures."

"Nothing . . . but insects. Still, their reach is long here and their numbers numerous. They cannot kill us, but if they find us-"

"The others?"

Rat blinked as he tried to look back down at his hands. They were fiddling with each other, finger flicking with finger. He felt distracted . . .

"Master doesn't want me to tell you. I think he feels guilty."

"Oh and why is that?"

"Because he destroyed something very big . . . and very important to these insects. He knows it . . . he doesn't want you to worry."

"Tell him . . . he's thinking too much. He always thinks too much."

"He does, doesn't he. Master, you think too much."

Silence, though Leium's chuckle did add to the atmosphere. Rat felt oblivious to such sounds as the only voice in his head was telling him other things to think about, like the Turians and what their "weapon" had been.

"He says it wasn't a weapon, but a travel device. I saw the same information."

The Matriarch gave a light shrug to her tiny drone, "Then it was good. If something used it around our area, they could come to us."

"But we have attracted unneeded attention. Wouldn't it be best to leave?" Rat said automatically

"No, we just need to land properly. This next planet-"

"Is not empty."

"It is empty enough."

"Their system has contact with other races and said races have hold on this planet."

"A challenge, no?"

"Don't mock me, Leithea."

"I didn't mock you . . . Atlas."

Rat's eyes opened, red once more, but something deep within his right pupil rose upwards. Tendrils of black bled forth and soon enough, Rat . . . Atlas . . .whoever was in control of that body, felt the black fingers poke through his eye. Rat no longer held a calm expression. Instead, his face contorted to fit what Atlas felt at the moment. He was calm, yes, but more importantly, he was very . . . very frustrated.

"Then you have a way of testing me." Atlas said loosening his posture. Rat's straight back now turned into a lean as he practically melted against his lover's belly. It was clear he was uncomfortable, what with how small he was and all. Never the less, Matriarch Leium's face never came to mock Atlas.

"I do not test you either. I just miss you so . . . very . . . much."

"If you missed me, then you would have taken my words seriously."

"And I do, my love. I do so whole heartedly. Do I need to tear my heart from my chest to show you?"

"That would be lovely . . . but you've already done that for me once."

"Oh? And did you not like it?"

"Every moment I saw of that day, I cannot forget. I will never forget."

"You forgot the taste though."

"Of course I forgot, your heart tastes like a rotting corpse."

Leium chuckled, "And yours was like excrement."

"And how would a fine woman as yourself know the taste of excrement?"

"Why, because of you of course."

That broke the two down in a fit of quick laughter. Moments like these, as rare as they were, felt familiar to the two of them. Not a single moment that had both of them by each other side passed by before they could banter off like this. Was it fate that drew them? Leium would have said so, but Atlas was a staunch believer of realism. Nevertheless, both could not deny their connection to one another.

Atlas' hand, with Rat's body, rested in the Matriarch's palm. He needed the quiet moment and for those precious seconds, he felt at peace.

But peace could never last with him . . .

"Those Turians are in a council. From what I've seen, they've all wasted their potential."

"Such powerful judgment Atlas. You would do well with edging off on being so cruel."

He growled through Rat's mouth, "They refuse to evolve. They steal from corpses rather than learn to make their own."

"We're not going for them, Atlas. Let them go."

"They will try to come for us. I swear it."

"I find them unworthy to spill. Don't me that look Atlas. We've been over this before."

"We already run and hide from the others. How long do you think it will take for them to find us with some worthless species of flightless avian drivel walking about and bumping into every little planet they believe they own. We are not safe with these worthless creatures as neighbors."

"Their destruction will bring more attention and last I recall, they have no idea what we are or what we even do. If they did, I think they would best not disturb us. We are their hornet's nest, after all."

"And if they come for us in fear? If they seek to destroy us."

Suddenly the warm smile that had been ever prevalent on the tall Matriarch twisted, convulsed into a wicked grin of maddened insanity. This . . . this horrifying expression could have inspired horrors upon horrors and countless tales by itself let alone the voice that accompanied it. Leium's voice grew just as sickening; high pitched enough to drive a man insane. No longer was it warm or motherly and any that could have felt a knife stabbing into the back of one's ear. Indeed, when she spoke, she spoke with the same hunger that every Aethus held for Leium's eyes was bleeding crimson finally after so many years.

"Then we kill –every –last –one of them."

Atlas sat up, looking at Leium right into the depths of her eyes as he smiled. "I love you."

"I know you do."

Loud blaring echoed throughout the ship. The Matriarch held onto Rat's hand while the body stood by Atlas' command.

"A new world then," he said kissing her finger, "Aethus Rises."

Leium's face softened at his gesture, "Aethus always rises."

* * *

The skies on Tuchanka were relatively brown that day. Of course, they had always been brown for the long thousands of years. The homeworld of the Krogans remained as bleak and dark as ever, a world on the brink of death itself.

Today, however, something new would come out from the muddy skies above. Anyone that had the gall to look up could see a red light, small and muted moving for one of the harshest parts of the Krogan world, the wastes. Those that did see said light, marked it off as a strange phenomenon while others thought it to be a crashing ship that would no doubt be destroyed within the heavy storms within the wastes. What no one ever thought to do was watch how big the light actually was for this ship and just how far this ship would change the shape of the universe.

* * *

**GLOSSARY**

**Murder-Farm: Derogatory term for easy kills. While some use it in context of something being tedious or worthless to kill, others use it as though their targets were stolen from them by a force/creature/person that would find the targets meaningless.**

**Terrors: Long standing achievements of high value or merit. These can range from complete obliteration of a clan, the hostile takeover of clan leadership, providing a strange new art form, or etc.**

**La'oi Desh: Roughly translates to "Dumbass" but literal translation is more "Genetic Invalid Retard." Obviously, alien languages can be difficult to give true meanings as La'oi Desh can change meanings in certain contexts. Using it against friends is a friendly jab or insult. Using it against one's mother is literally calling her a scum of the earth. Be wary.**

**Ya'mack thro'va Deshik: Used by males to refer to the Prime Matriarch of a Clan. Translation is literal in meaning as follows "Great Gene Mother of the Risen" with Ya'Mack being an respective use of Yamal or "Mother" Thro'va being conjugated form of Voohn meaning "to rise" and Deshik being a conjugation of Desh which means "Of genes"**

**Al-Voh-Den: Used similarly to "Yes milord" or "Yes sir." Direct translation means "We Rise." Voh-Den is conjugation of Voohn which means "to rise."**

**Aethun Vasha Voh-den: Stated like a mantra. Very common for the Aethus people to say when they're at the peak of excitement. Directly means "Aethus Always Rises"**

**Scions: A stage of female development before achieving Matriarchy. This stage is after the "Primals" stage and Scions are considered to be the prime years of growth and development for a female's unique body type and form. Males do not have this growth process. Instead, they have what is called a "Sigma," which is a stage of inner change and this is where most Aethus males choose their philosophy as well as their genetic preferences.**

* * *

**Too tired, don't care. Can't edit. I wrote this whole thing in fucking two days and my brain wants to kill itself.**

**Feel free to read and review.**


	3. Chapter 2: A Brave New World

***Any and All Words With a Star at the End Will Be Defined in the Glossary Below***

**Please read and review**

**Also, I've decided to give more frequent updates instead of 10000 word ones. Hope you guys like this.**

* * *

**Aethus: Year One**

* * *

**Chapter 2: A Brave New World**

* * *

It had been nearly two week's time since they had landed on this strange planet; Rat calculated the time off the planet's solar cycle and found it a little faster than the home world. Then again, with land fall having just occurred and the ensuing chaos, everything seemed to be moving so quickly that his days had blurred.

Apparently, the ship's coordinator had been . . . mating and eating out her lover's heart while trying to land the ship. She, like many of the other Scion and Primals*, had indulged in their aggressive to attack their males and as such, by the time they landed, the ship practically crashed upon meeting their new world. The problem came with the rings as they lined up with the maw, the literal opening where their space faring craft ate and so forth. Since the rings were still parallel with the mouth and the ship had dove in mouth first to dig down into the earth, the result had the rings stuck at a perpendicular angle the gravity.

In light of the situation and the high that all the other Aethus felt, and because nothing had actually been damaged within the female sleeping quarters or birthing chambers, no one called for the ship coordinator's head. The atmosphere with the males was also fairly calm and some were even glad to finally do some work with digging the ship out. With a workforce of 600 males, 3000 drones and 400 females, area around the ship was dug and the rings were pushed one by one before the ship creature began digging downwards. The first day even saw the Scions and Matriarchs pull their weight, but they disappeared once the outer ring and the sleeping quarters were reestablished. Everyone agreed it was for the best.

Three days was all it took which was slower than he anticipated, but nonetheless, the things were returning to how it was on Aethus. The males, along the drones, were establishing tunneling networks to extend the size of their potential base while breaking down the equipment on the ship. The younger females, Primals and below, did the same though they were more interested with divvying space while searching for mates. Rat knew that Matriarch Leium was in talks with the Scions and the other Matriarchs because of the dark spots in his memory. Any time he couldn't remember where he had been for the past five hours, it was most likely the Master's doing.

In any case, at least he wasn't taking care of the children.

Child upbringing was much different from drone care, as far as Rat was aware. Where drones were mass produced male humanoids from a genetic base that any gender could provide, child birth was a long drawn out process between two parties to create one, or two, offspring. One party was always a female and the other could be of either gender. Indeed, the ability to produce children of Aethus were highly valued, most due in part because females always retained the ability to give birth and could reassign the genetic ability required to do such things . . . into other processes. No doubt, this was the reason why females were superior to males, save for Alpha Males who also happened to have the ability to produce children.

Children at the ages of 1-5 were never of their parents' sights and when they were 7 or 8, they always required supervision in some manner. Such ages were harsh and cruel, especially since they lacked the ability to regenerate. Of course, while they were still hardier than most drones were, it was still common for Aethus to find their children murdered by different clan. However, now that they had moved an immeasurable distance away from the other clans, the Aethus under Clan Leium's banner were at ease.

The drones, on the other hand, were now at the center of attention as ages 9-10 were when where Aethus children began to separate from their birth parents. It was an age where both males and females would learn to come onto their own. Of course, they were still with their families, but now their interactions would come mostly from other children . . . and the drone taking care of them.

As it turned out, Rat had been that drone up until five days ago when the newest patch of drones came out. Within this batch came the one drone he had identified and he was much less impressed than he hoped to be. Only an abnormal, not an Aethus . . . worse yet was the fact that the drone did not have the same regeneration as Rat and his other abnormals*.

Still, regeneration was not important to keep children occupied. If anything, the personality this drone was more important. He had even come up with his own name.

"Shepard?" Rat exclaimed as he came towards the children's corner. This room, unlike the other ones, were heavily supplied with light whether artificial or from bugs while toys and other bits fun distractions. Of course, this time, the distraction came from Shepard who found himself being manhandled by nearly 30 little boys and girls, all doing their own separate thing to him. The other twenty were having too much fun playing with each other . . . though honestly, there was already enough to mess with Shepard.

Needless to say, the young drone was panicking.

"H-help p-pl-l-lease Rat. I haven't moved f-f-or an hour."

Rat, with his empty expression, shrugged and walked into the room, carefully dodging any running children trying to play tag or "fighting." Rat felt somewhat disappointed; the room was still in the same mess as yesterday . . . and the day before that . . . and the day before that. Honestly, how hard was it to get children to clean the room? He got them to do it and as much grumbling as they had given him, they should have known clean up the mess from the chaotic crash.

"How has the room not been cleaned?" Rat asked innocently. Shepard, on the other hand, looked to be flinching at the comment, as though Rat had stabbed the younger drone in the stomach.

"I'm sorry, but the children . . . they're . . . they're very hard to . . . uh . . .do things with and-and . . . I-I-OW, please stop biting me."

Giggling came from Shepard's right as Rat looked towards the girl that bit Shepard on the ear, "I'm sorry. Mr. Sheperd. It tastes funny and it's soft."

The other children were smiling as well, laughing with one another as they had their fun. As pathetically as Shepard looked at the moment, Rat had to admit, at least the children were happy . . . which was much more than what Rat did when tried to take care of them

* * *

**_One Week Earlier_**

_"Mr. Rat? Mr. Rat?" one of the children asked as all fifty children were grumbling to themselves. No one had been exempt from cleaning as Rat was watching over everyone do their work. The one boy that tried to speak had been a brown haired child with pudgier cheeks that would no doubt leave him once he grew._

_"Yes?"_

_The boy looked around as the children stopped working, "Can we take a break?"_

_Rat thought for a moment, pausing to consider how much progress they had made. With a nod, he decided to let them off the hook for a second._

_"Yes, that sounds good. We shall be taking a break."_

_The children were beaming, joyful and happy with the mercy of Rat's infinite grace. The only problem was that he wasn't done speaking._

_"-And for our break, I shall teach you the biological processes and structure of an Aethus cell. Please take remember these for your soon to be made test."_

_Immediately, the happy smiles returned to deep sighs, three or four children were even starting to cry as they realized they would be tortured by Rat's droning, empty voice._

_"The mitochondria* is the powerhouse of the cell-"_

_There were many tears that day._

* * *

"I feel you have the situation under control. Please continue the good work."

With that, Rat turned around to escape the room, despite Shepard's protests.

"W-wwai-t! Please, no, no! Come back!"

Too late . . . Rat was already gone by the time the drone had cried out. Rat had walked out a little faster than usual hoping to ignore his fellow drone before anything came up into his mind to help Shepard. Besides, even if he tried to help, all he'd do would cause the children to weep uncontrollably. Shepard did good work . . . very good work.

With the door closed and his back turned, Rat soon made himself move at a brisk pace as he directed himself to another part of the inner ring. Again, the floor and walls began to get progressively covered an organic orange flesh, just as it did with the drone birthing chambers. Unlike the birthing chambers, however, several long pulsating veins spread itself from the opening of the door. These veins were old, with growths and pustules over some that smelled of a bitter puss. While there were newer veins, these old veins still worked their heart out, even as they looked to be falling to pieces. Rat stroked his hand over the old vein and before long, the tendril shook as if to thank him.

"I would ask that you do not touch my partner's mental nodes."

Rat turned quickly at the cold and calm voice and, as it turned out, he came to find what he had been looking for. The ice queen of a female stood tall, as tall as the tallest male with narrow eyes twice as fierce. Her eyes had effectively been shaped like that of an ancient bird of his homeworld. This long lost species was only remembered through genetic memories and right then and there, Rat could see that she honored its memory.

"Ship coordinator Ashaal," Rat said calmly, all the while giving her a bow, "I did not expect you out of your room."

The tall and proud female held a posture like that of a spire, skinny yet imposing with raw power just waiting to be released. She could have been a lot thicker and muscular like the other Primals and younger Scions, but she seemed to prefer her skinnier form. She had only recently evolved her sequences into that of a Scion's and her choice in becoming the controller was only starting to show. No hair rested atop her head and in its place, she grew out much of her cranial nerve endings to have it push out of the back of her head. This long, tightly spun cord was twice as thick as Rat's arm and its full length was most likely extraordinary due to how loosely it lay down at her feet before snaking off back into her room.

Ashaal's clothes were thicker than simple outer wear. It looked as though she were wearing armor and the strange collar the clothes had were lined with uneven spikes. As she reached at her cord, the black flesh stretched with her and moved as though it were made of bugs rather than the usual secretions an Aethus made.

"I decided to stand up." She said with a frigid voice, "My body has not been able to move since we landed."

Rat refrained from commenting, more due in part because he didn't even know how to give witty remarks than anything else.

"I am here to inspect Sardic. Is he well?"

"He up to full capacity and requires no such inspections. All biological systems were refreshed, I've removed any long standing damages from earlier and I've helped him process all necessary genetic changes. Strand 13-4b-29 is half way to completion while 32-3c-13 has been removed and replaced with its necessary dummy genes."

Rat raised an eye brow, but said nothing. It was hard to believe only two weeks ago that this near perfect specimen of control, intelligence, and respect had devolved into a blood craving, sex hungry beast. Three drones had been ordered to inform Ashaal of their incorrect alignment, but, if Rat remembered correctly, each and every one of them had their spines ripped out and brain completely slurped up . . . or was it the spinal fluid that was slurped up and their craniums ripped off the bodies? Rat had trouble remembering details like that.

"Regardless, I must inspect Sardic. The transition from ship to base is not a process that Master and Matriarch Leium would like delayed and I believe we have already been delayed enough as it is."

Ashaal practically glared at him; if looks could kill, Rat would have most likely exploded from her eyes alone. Though an angry sneer rose up on the corner of her lips, she relented to the order of the Matriarch and let Rat through. He walked into the chamber, feeling the fleshy wall start to undulate as he walked over a thin nerve cord or two. Indeed, the entrance way felt a claustrophobic and every time it shook, he felt the walls squeeze up against him. He was quite glad to remove himself from the entrance and the wide chamber of the control room was a welcome change.

Here, there were hundreds if not thousands of tiny strands hanging from the ceiling. A mere touch had them curl up before having them go back to their original position. In the middle, which also happened to be where Ashaal long nerve cords spiraled off to, was a large pool filled with semi clear liquid. Lazy tendrils lay within the pool without purpose or care as they refused to move for anyone but themselves. The only sort of activity here seemed to come from Ashaal her cords had fused with the flesh in the middle of the pool, bits and flares of electricity sparking as information moved back and forth.

Rat sat down at the edge of the pool and pulled out his knife. With so many hanging cords resting around him, it was easy for him to gather a bunch of them and hold on while he steadied his dominant hand. Rat aimed his knife right above his nose in the middle of his brow. Scrapping flesh would do nothing as his regeneration would have quite a field day with that so instead, he kept the blade pointed at his forehead before pulled it back and slammed most of the terrifying, teethed thing into the front of his brain.

He saw white for just a second before his senses returned to him. Black fluid trickled from his wound along with brain fluid which Rat instinctively licked up as it came by his lips. Of course, it wasn't long after that where he decided to help the gathered ceiling tendrils to gather around his wound. The knife was hard to remove, but soon enough, the curved blade was gone and in its place, the mental strings felt around to feel the blood and fluid. Like little hands, they touched and moved along and into the open flesh before finally making their way to Rat's still regenerating brain. Rat already knew what would happen next.

"Hello Sardic," he thought, "How are you doing?"

The moments of silence were laced with splashing near the pool. The tendrils seemed to act as though being commanded to move towards Rat. When they touched Rat's shoulders, they suddenly moved for his face before going for his hands and gently wrapping around them.

"Rat, you sly little shit." Said a deep and booming voice, Sardic always did like being loud, "What are you doing here?"

Rat gave that ever rare smile before turning back to his usual empty self, "I am here on the orders of Master Atlas and Matriarch Leium. Sardic, I hope your progress from ship to forward expansion is not difficult."

A deep chuckle answered him like that of a grandfather hearing a child as how he was doing. Indeed, Sardic was quite old for a male, probably about 50 years older than Rat was. For whatever reason, Sardic enjoyed speaking to Rat from the moment he first met the small drone to then. Indeed, Rat recalled Sardic being just as aggressive as the other Aethus and the man hadn't once hit or reprimanded him like any other Aethus. Completely changing his body only seemed to mellow him out further and soon Rat found his head being petted like the man would have done with his old body.

"Aren't you a little uptight? Still haven't lost that touch, eh? Sit down, stay a while, we haven't even talked for a year."

Rat frowned, "Forgive me. The last drones that tried to get in had their brains and spines eaten."

"Oh, that's a horrible over exaggeration. Ashaal, what did we, uhh, do to those drones."

"I ate them, dear," she said coldly, "You were the one that asked for me to suck on their spines."

"Oh," Sardic paused for a moment, before his tendrils waved it off, "Well, the past is the past my boy. We won't be feeling anything for a while, right sweetie?"

Ashaal sighed and Rat felt her send him signals through her nerve cord. She wanted the conversation to end.

"I agree with Ashaal. I have a lot of work to do, Sardic. I am sorry we cannot talk."

"BAH, don't be so bland. Ashaal's just being jealous you're taking my attention. Just stay around, live a little kid. Don't waste that little droney head of your's."

Needless to say, Rat felt conflicted. On one hand, he had work to do and schedules to keep for Master and his lover . . . on the other hand, Sardic was an old friend.

"Alright, then I shall work while we talk." Rat said standing up. "Where are your gene archives?"

"Here," Ashaal pointed as she started to form her knife. It was different from Rat's, slender and thin while its grip ended with a hook at the end. It was so thin that she had pulled it out by sliding her index finger off as the finger hardened into the knife's shape while a new index finger came in its place. Moving over to where she pointed, Ashaal stabbed into the flesh and pulled it out to reveal long translucent, multicolored strands of genetic data. So thick was this DNA that Rat could see it from a distance, but, of course, reading it required a closer inspection. Rat stood up, letting the strands follow him until he found himself unable to move. He had reached the maximum distance of the ceiling tendrils.

Sardic gave a hearty mental laugh while Ashaal walked over for Rat to read the genetic manuscript. Rat had quite an experience reading the manuscript and some part of him enjoyed the quiet work that was needed. Since Aethus could not literally see down to a particle or molecule, reading genes required looking at the make of repeated sequences. It was hard work and even Rat required long hours to look at his whole genome before he could make changes. Luckily for him, he only needed to look at two strands and that gave him ample space to be questioned by Sardic.

"So then, boy. How has life been treating you?"

"Good," Rat said continuing his work with no sign of slowing. "Master got rid of a ship. Did you take a glance at the memory archives?"

"Ha, of course. What else do you think I can do like this boy?"

Ashaal rolled her eyes, "No need to continue, dear."

"Nonsense, I'm stuck as a fat bug ship with thousands walking about me without half a damn. I deserve to shout, scream, and complain."

"Will you stop if I give you a kiss?" she asked ever so innocently. Rat felt the strange tingle of an unfamiliar sensation. He knew the sensation's concept as love but otherwise, it meant nothing to Rat.

"Maaaaaaybe," Sardic chuckled, trying to be cheeky. Ashaal herself gave off a wide arrange of sensations that Rat could identify. She may have been cold and professional, but Sardic's little moments seemed to attract her indefinitely. Before long, the tall woman was kneeling down towards the ground to give the fleshy floor a kiss. Sardic tingled both Rat and Ashaal's head as he giggled.

"I love you sweetie."

"I love you too, Sardic."

The change of attention nearly sent Rat into whiplash as he felt Sardic grab a bead on him.

"So then, Rat, you got an Ashley you looking at? Or if you're into guys, got a . . . a . . . what was your nickname for me?"

Ashaal was not smiling, but Rat knew she was enjoying this more than she admitted, "You mean, bubble butt?"

"No, the other one."

"I don't recall any other ones."

"The one you used when we were having sex."

"Ah yes, I believe it was-"

"Miss Ashaal, I can't read the manuscript," Rat commented as he pointed towards her hand. Ashaal had blinked, but quickly switched from surprise to anger, sending venomous signals towards Rat.

"Now now, we don't need to fight. We have plenty of that in our spare time."

Rat nodded, receiving the manuscript from Ashaal. It would seem they were never going to get along, but at least they never had to see each other unless Sardic was around.

"So as I was saying-" Rat cut Sardic off before the voice could finish.

"No, I do not have any attractions."

Sardic mused and paused with a growing silence, "Not even one?"

"All the females and males on the ship were asleep for the time we were maintaining things. I am not attracted to males so my fellow drones do not stimulate me in any way."

"So females then?"

". . . I don't know."

"Good enough for me. At least you're unsure boy. That leaves you open, open for a good surprise. I remember when Ashaal surprised me, tried _to break my neck_. Oh, I stopped her, but she got the best of me and _broke my spine_ and then I had to **tear her arm off** and _she ripped mine and-and the **blood boy**, **the blood**, _I could never forget how hot it felt to feel it boil. "

Images of violence and pain hit Rat, but he did nothing or react to the oncoming experience. He almost felt a bit of his vision go red as Sardic continued.

"You should have seen her _R**I**_p_ my **s**P**I**_**n**_e out_. I-I had to_ **s**_M**_a_**_sH heR s**K**Ul_L_ in_ just to get her off my back before I-"

More images and this time his right eye felt a little itchy. He tried to finish with the work before Sardic got carried away, but the man was continuing. Truth be told, now all he was hearing was the violent bits instead of anything else

"**_BLEED . . . Wrung her neck . . . Taste her blood . . . Writhe . . . Split in Half . . . torn to pieces._**"

He had to finally stop Sardic when he finished, beads of sweat lining his forehead from his concentration. His face, however, remained unfeeling, though it was clear that this Rat had definitely felt something.

"I have finished. Thank you for the talk Sardic."

Sardic paused, but the moment had passed. No longer was Rat's eye itching and neither was he feeling the bloodlust Sardic was feeling.

"Ah, any time boy. Feel free to come back. I miss you, you know!"

A firm tug was all Rat needed to take the mental cords out before he moved for the entrance. While Rat walked, Ashaal went for the tendrils in the pool and stroked them as though stroking Sardic's face. Rat's hands were still feeling that twitch and want, a need for something even as he tried to control himself. He hoped Master wouldn't mind him resting for . . . just a bit.

* * *

**Palaven**

* * *

His talons shook against the dextro-juice as he sat down; he preferred natural fluids compared to processed high energy drinks. Despite having bought the drink and opened it, he hadn't taken a sip of the stuff. His feet were tapping away at the ground as he waited and unfortunately for him, the ground almost seemed specifically made for his steady. Luckily for him, that tick and tap was doing wonders for his head by keeping him focused on a steady task while his mind wandered.

Two weeks was also quite a long time for Sparatus. After all, two weeks of complete silence from an unknown alien race that probably obliterated a Mass Relay was keeping people on edge. Of course, the official channels said that the relay had been missing or damaged due to the actions of a possible accident, but things were obviously not adding up for the populace. Sparatus, ironically, had the least to deal with; reporters and critics knew of his tight-lipped attitude so they were busy hounding the other councilors.

On the home front, things had gotten quiet on Palaven. Several of the survivors had passed within the weeks and by that time, doctors called the chances of recovery being miniscule. Sparatus had gotten the details in the most straightforward way possible when he came around: these soldiers were already dead. Whether they lived long enough to tell their story, however, was a different problem entirely because much of the recovery process required rest and high doses of pain killers. Too much of rest and pain killers and the survivors would simply remain vegetables. The other side was just as grim with the Turians dying to the overwhelming pain of tumorous growths.

A part of Sparatus wondered if they were better off dying before they could wake up and suffer. Of all the Turians that knew what it was like living with some form of irradiative poisoning, it was him. He had a genetic defect that made his exoskeleton slightly thinner and his early years were plagued with less than savory experiences. Thankfully, his family had been wealthy enough to afford Salarian treatment and now all he had to do was take medication. It still didn't make him lose the aches, especially now that he was older.

Now, if he had suffered that much with minor bits of radiation, he couldn't have imagined what in the hell the survivors of that patrol were feeling. He couldn't even look at the worst looking Turians, their faces lined with heavy cancer and throbbing bulbs of flesh. The worst part was seeing the flesh try to ooze out of the exoskeletons; the very shield that would save a Turian from an irradiated demise on Palaven had now become prison. Much of the surgery was done to both remove the tumors and any sort of exoskeletal structure to help keep the patients from feeling their body squeeze itself to death. For some, that was already too late . . . and proper ceremonies required keeping the body covered.

Today, like most of the representatives of the military, Sparatus came to offer his condolences. Unlike other times, however, this was different more in the sense of his timing. He had waited day after day until the right moment was upon him as his charge had been surrounded and kept busy with reporters and the like. It felt like cowardice to him, just keeping his distance until then and even when he came alone at the dead of night when only the bare minimum staff would catch a glimpse of the councilor, Sparatus felt eyes from every direction. A knife was less painful at this point.

"Councilor Sparatus," the hospital VI said to him as quietly as possible, "The patient is ready for your visit. Please maintain a quiet inside voice when wa-"

Sparatus shut out the VI's damned voice as he walked past the thing.

* * *

**Tuchanka, The Wastes**

* * *

Work was good today.

Slake nodded to himself as he continued taking his mandatory 3 hour break. His back rested on several sharp rocks that dug into his spine, the pain giving him a nice tingly sensation. Yes, yes, he did do a lot today. The average work day consisted of 20 evenly divided hours. Slake's seventeen hours had him clearing out the future Terrasite pits, the Brood pits, and the Spire pits. There were a lot of pits to deal with today.

Still, he didn't like how he couldn't do more work.

An Aethus, and an abnormal like Slake, had only two problems in life: What to do and how to do it. Finding what to do was the boring part, the part that got every Aethus rolling around in the dirt. When they did find what to do, how they did said work became the dream, the ecstasy that got their blood pumping. That had primarily been why he had been annoyed with his Master weeks prior, when all the kills had been taken. Slake would have enjoyed just doing a little bit of play, just a little bit of fooling around. Or maybe he would have gone all out and just obliterated the ship in the process. Yes, that would have been fun.

Grumbling to himself, Slake wondered how long it would take till they started some actual combat. He had thought about doing a little sightseeing, but there was so much work to be done here. Not only were the pits supposed to be dug out, but then there would have to be all the inspections, the preparations, the actual settings, all those lovely things. There were plenty of excuses for Slake to use to stop himself from doing anything as dumb as the last time Driver shouted at them.

Where the hell was slave Driver anyways? He may have hated the bastard with a passion, but there was supposed to be order in this damned place: Slake did something stupid and Driver would get pissy only for Slake to push Driver even further off the edge. There was something calming about having a consistent relationship that bordered on animosity and professional conduct, it was . . . interesting, something fun to look forward to.

Before his mind could wander further towards Driver, however, his senses alerted him of a wandering creature off in the distance and around a corner or two. He rolled off his back to let the open wounds heal before he called out.

"Identify," he growled as he straightened his back. There was no response, only the pitter patter of tiny steps making its way towards him. Was it another drone? No, a normal drone would have identified itself . . . this was something else.

Not being one to back away from . . . well, anything, Slake simply meandered forward lazily dragging his leg along. It was probably another abnormal or Aethus or something, one of the shorter creatures that were still wandering around. With a week's worth of digging, it was hardly a surprise people were getting lost. Hell, it could have been a flesh hound* too, those things always had their beady little eyes on anything they could chomp down on.

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't an Aethus or a flesh hound, but rather an Abnormal. Even stranger yet, the abnormal drone wasn't just any abnormal; it was Rat!

"Ey'," Slake growled angrily as he finally spotted Rat passing by the cave, "When I say identify, you identify."

"Forgive me, Slake," Rat responded immediately, "I've been looking for Driver. Have you seen him anywhere?"

Slake was about to growl again when he caught a strange scent wafting up to his nose. His mouth had opened and closed, his nose starting to scrunch as he sniffed the air around him. The only place where the smell could come from . . . was Rat.

"You smell off. Dried sweat," he grimaced, "You don't usually smell off."

Slake never did like Rat's face. Of course, it wasn't like it looked terrible or annoying . . . it just never changed. Even when Rat seemed somewhat distressed, it was Rat's posture and scent that was telling Slake that something was wrong, not Rat's face. Still, at least Rat seemed reactionary this time, though conflicting thoughts in Slake's brain was starting to confuse him. Good that Slake could tell that Rat wasn't some unemotive drone, bad because he could tell that Rat was off about . . . something.

"I don't know, I wanted to ask Driver. I was hoping that you would know."

"Driver hasn't been here since last week and why the hell would you wann-" he paused, "Did you just use a contraction?"

Rat rose an eyebrow, "What?"

"You . . . you don't use- Don't tell me you haven't noticed."

Rat continued his blinking, "No, I have not noticed."

"See, now that you know, you're not doing it."

"I do not know what you're talking about."

". . . alright, we're getting a move on," Slake said, suddenly taking Rat up in his arm before flinging the drone over his shoulder, "You're not right."

Rat initially squirmed, but stopped, "Please put me down. I'm fine.

"No you're not, we're getting to the bottom of this shit before it gets even worse." Slake said as he started for the exit. "I hope Driver's got some god damn answer for this shit."

* * *

**Definition**

**Primals: Primals are an age group within both female and males that could be called the "Teenage Years." During this time, bloodlust and sexual drives run high. When females first achieve the ability to bear children is the marker of when a female has progressed to the Primal stage. For males, on the other hand, the Primal stage is only about five years long before they pass on to a Sigma as this stage is when they cope with their most volatile changes, growing from very adorable children with the highest recorded heights being barely 3-4 feet tall to highly evolved aggressive killing machines.**

**Children: From the ages of birth to about ten years of age, an Aethus becomes its most vulnerable. They neither have the regeneration nor the aggression that their parents have and it requires a long grueling ten years of incubation before their hormones can jumpstart their bodies. While most clans avoid aiming for children, as the two codes of philosophy of Aethus highly discourage doing so, it does not mean children are completely safe from death. Upon reaching the age of Ten, rites of passages are common in forcefully giving children scenarios that will force their biological change. This is usually the most common time that children die as trials are merciless. Clans like Leium's clan, however, have found the process unsavory and prefer to wait.**

**Mitochondria: "The powerhouse of the cell . . . bitch."**

**Ships: Ship designs for Aethus are strange. Unlike most other space faring creatures, Aethus space travel only requires a pair to maintain perfect activity, one that provides instructions for ships to follow and one . . . that must become the ship. The controller is most always a female, Scion or older due to the amount of mental fortitude it requires to merge their consciousness with their partner. The ship is either a sibling or a lover, reshaped over the course of half a year or so. Because the ships are literal Aethus, there is never a set design for ships are usually made to house thousands of Aethus in mind. The largest ships are made of several Aethus bodies, the largest coming from Clan Vi'car which happens have a ship the size of earth called the "World Eater."**

* * *

**Feel free to read and review.**

**PS: Yes, that is Shepard . . . yes, I have plans for him.**

**PSS: Yes, I added things to Sparatus' story. And yes, they do seem a little human.**

**PSSS: Yes, Rat does not speak in contractions normally. Please feel free to check the other two chapters.**


	4. Chapter 3: Do Drones Dream of Dead Sheep

***Any and All Words With a Star at the End Will Be Defined in the Glossary Below***

**Please read and review**

**Thank you for those that did review. I've decided to reply to as many reviews as possible.**

**C. Jaxx: Thank you for your long review. I appreciate people like you . . . and yes, I will continue to write. Sorry for taking so long to reply to the story.**

**Jabbarulez: Sorry for changing it . . . no longer three . . . just Aethus.**

**Slenders Father: Not an ME horror story, but I suppose the first chapter was quite horror filled.**

**Kinunatzs: Sorry for confusing you. I hope you're still reading**

**Hornet07: sorry about the inconsistencies.**

**Wolf: Thanks**

**Cretin: XD, I hope you're still reading this**

**Septon: It's not replaced with an Asari creature, it's replaced by a human looking weirdo, the Aethus. Turians don't know what a human is after all. Thank you for the review though. I hope you're still reading.**

**Redcollecter: the Aethus have been mulling about in my head for a while. I wanted to write a story with all three . . . but then I realized I had too many ideas and concepts for the Aethus to truly give each race their own screen time. Will be writing more so I hope you are still reading.**

**Dragonfire781: thank you, I hope you continue reading.**

**xThomas2: Thanks for the read.**

**EffervescentNova: Yes, I was thinking they were quite shaken by the whole experience . . . especially with the worm thing wrapped around the ship and the guy killing Turians with his bare hands and taking bullets. Perhaps I could have done more, but I'm feeling that the captain was a little too invested with his crew too let them die in the service of Palaven . . . though you know how that result went. As for them being too human, they're living breathing individuals with lives of their own. They have history and pasts that coincide with each other. If that's supposed to just be human, you just might be species-ist :3. Just kidding, thanks for the review though.**

**Wolfman217: Good weird or bad weird?**

**EXpertUS: They were blindsided by enemies with technology that they're unfamiliar with after having come from a long period of peace, 262 years to be specific. They expected a race of confused aliens with mass effect technology and tried to show good will. From what I see, they were being TOO professional whereas all the other fics of similar nature seem to have Turians as trigger happy dipshits. Luckily for you friend, we'll be seeing more experienced and cleaner military operations done by the Turians in the near future with just as equally strange and thought out plans by the Aethus.**

**Guest: Yea, weird story friend. Hopefully you're still reading.**

**#2 Guest: The story expects you to know a bit of what the Turians actually are. This is a fanfiction primarily about my race, which we've discussed in the last two chapters. I don't want to waste my time with the Mass Effect universe because we already have something completely weird for them to deal with.**

**Dug: Thank you, I'll probably polish later. Until then, I'm just blaze through and keep up the pace.**

**Dusk Raider: One of the Inspirations. I wish I could show you all the picture of the Aethus.**

**Emperor-H: thank you, and yes, I already am planning to write a lot.**

**Dreddman: Aethus**

**And the rest I believe I've replied. Thank you for reading and review. Any bit of constructive criticism, good or bad, **

* * *

**Aethus: Year One**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Do Drones Dream of Bleeding Sky**

* * *

Muddy skies roared on the horizon while sun kissed grounds sizzled with just as much flare as the dying flames from the smoldering remains of bleeding tank, half covered by the shade of a tall pillar nearby. The scent of blood was fresh here, as were the skull shattered corpses of hulking reptilian bodies.

Movement, sound, and just before long, one Krogan was shaking himself out of his stupor. The first thing he could feel was the tank crushing his legs. Broken bones were in his thoughts, shoving out all semblances of logic or tactics for sheer survival. He pushed on the weight and while strong, all he could do was force it to groan up just slightly before he pulled out his broken leg.

He never had the chance as the long spear of metal slammed into the front of the Krogan's thick skull and blew out the reptile's hump: another corpse, another victim, and another body to clean up for Driver.

Off in the distances, through sandstorms and twisting pools of air disturbing waves of heat, and resting atop a tall mound of stone and sand was the ever so lean man with the eyes sharp enough to see through the visual obstacles. The Krogan movements had inched the reptiles too close towards Driver's position and while he may have disliked removing people out for no reason, he didn't want the Krogan to start getting any thoughts about getting any closer to the hive.

He would have jumped off his rock had he not seen movement from one of the cars, the hulking definitely failed to learn sneaking off. Unlike the others, however, this one had been smart to use properly placed cover to break line of sight. Driver sat patiently, waiting out every second as his plan was shaped in real time. The lack of movement meant the Krogan was trying to communicate or send a message to a different team of sorts. Another couple of seconds and the lizard would see that their strange hard light constructs would do no such thing. What did get his attention was when he heard one of the arms behind him start to rumble among the mound of dead bodies. The others quickly followed suit.

While Driver was considered an Aethus to the younger generations of males and females, he was anything but just another muscle bound warrior of the flesh. The males were . . . simple when it came to how they dealt with opponents. Throw everything at them and hope for the best. If you died, then you were worthless. If you were alive, you lived to die another day. There was rarely any place for deception or tactics.

Driver, on the other hand, was like a female. All females had heavy sway in the politics within and between each clan and any sort of action was held with high scrutiny. Only the most brutal and cunning females could ever act as irrationally as most males did and the others . . . the others were more keen on the subtle side of things.

Of course, that wasn't to say that males were just stupid murder machines. They showed their own breed of intelligence, being able to think on their feet and change the flow and momentum of battle. Just don't ask a male to spy on another or stab them behind their back.

Perhaps that was why Driver was under his Master's charge. An Alpha Male like Atlas deserved to have more than just brute strength or the thirst for knowledge; he needed to have cunning to hone brutality to a sharp edge.

Seeing that the Krogan would not leave his position behind the tank, Driver decided to go on the offensive once more. Snapping his neck back the other way, the man calmly leaned forward while his left hand began fondling his right arm. Right hand and fingers open out wide and close, open and close. Left hand pulled towards right hand, fingers cracked as though for show, but no one is around to hear him. Higher elevation and rocky grounds watched in silence with long sandy winds brushing against his skin only to pull back.

His right hand cracked, only to unfurl and twist back against the bone. Each finger peeled as its own petal with his arm as the flower. His shoulder rolled with a casual tedium, all the while the fingers peeled skin and muscle to leave only metal bone that gleamed in the sun. His hand had left with the petals so the bone left over. The two bones in his fore arm crackled as they broke bit by bit and before long there was only one. Twists, turns, cracks and folds; there was only a single thick rod.

He reached for his malformed creation, pulling it off while flesh stretched and tore off. Blood bubbled out before stopping and the connective tissue that merged muscles with bone tried pulling back. He bit down on the tissue with a satisfying snap. No more open wounds, only a nub of bone and then a bubbling to forge the base of his fore arm. His metal bone shivered before a piece jut out in rapid succession, sporadically with heavy crackling regenerating as much as he could. Instead of forming one solid piece it grows up once, then off the side, then another direction, then forming a split. It continued to branch till it reached twice as long as the forearm's original length before it twisted into itself. The metal screeched and squealed as it merged with itself. With the fore arm as it was, he had the flesh roll back over, blood pumping through and swelling the shriveled flesh.

His weapon starts to crumble at his hardened grip before it thinned out. Thickness was lost, but Driver didn't need a rock or an ax. He needed a weapon of his grand design, a spear, a javelin, sharp end and aerodynamic . . . and clean.

He pulled his right arm back, smiling with a sadistic grin.

And fired

* * *

**Hours Later**

* * *

"Driver," Slake said as he felt around the dusty ground. Though the smell of corpses and blood had been removed, along with the actual bodies themselves, there were plenty of clues if one knew where to look.

The acid smell was the first, an after product of a highly corrosive liquid that ate up even the toughest substances. One could have even said that the liquid had lives of their own by how it selectively ate up biological bits and pieces. There wasn't even a hint of blood that hinted at the ensuing massacre. Slake growled as he spied a small hole small in diameter, but thick beyond belief.

"Are you sure we should be out here?" Rat said as his legs still remained hanging against Slake's chest. Slake had literally taken the smaller drone up to the surface with very little regard for Rat's complaints.

"Driver was here, that means we can be here as well."

"Your line of logic does not make sense."

"Save it, Rat. You know you wanted to come here too. 'Sides, you needed to talk to Driver so now we're gonna find that skinny bastard."

"I still think we should wait back in base."

Slake threw his package down, leaving Rat sprawled onto the dirt and scrambling onto his feet. The tall figure refrained from doing anything else to his compatriot other than growl; Slake was too busy checking out the grounds around him to try and convince Rat. If Rat wanted to go, he would go. Slake wasn't going to stop Rat from walking miles upon miles back to the hive. As he took a glance back towards the short drone, he watched as Drone tried looking back towards the darkened, stormy wastes before turning back towards Slake. Slake knew what choice Rat made.

"If we are to do this, we'r- WE are taking every precaution necessary for stealth."

"Stealthy is my middle name."

"I fail to see how having such a name will help us."

Slake shook his head, "It was a joke."

"Ah . . . then what I also said was a joke."

"No, kid that's not how . . . never mind, let's just get moving."

Slake looked towards the muddy skies beyond their position and upon viewing the horizon, he came across the sights of ancient Krogan monuments. Slake assumed these were Krogan monuments due to the massive Krogan looking statues, but nothing in his genetic memory suggested knowledge or information. A part of him had been suspicious of Driver, mostly because of the lack of information in the archives. Had Driver been out for the week to scour the Krogans, where were the logs to prove it. The spear marks were undoubtedly Driver's weapon of choice . . . no other Aethus or drone ever acted as a cowardly sniper.

"Driver may be under orders to keep the information a secret," Rat said

"And he's not telling us about it either," Slake growled as he whipped his hand across a stone pillar. The sheer force pulverized the striking area into dust while the pillar fell with the fist's momentum. Vein almost popped on his head as he tried to make sense of all this; Did Driver truly find his fellow abnormals to be this stupid. Rat kept a few feet back as Slake's arrogance clouded his judgment and he soon went pointing towards the statues.

"We move." Slake said looking towards Rat.

Rat said nothing, but it was clear that he felt off, despite the drone's emotionless expression. Slake could see it in Rat's movements, twitchy and on his feet. Rat probably half expected an ambush.

"Driver's here. He would have cleared the way," Slake muttered before he walked forth. Truth be told, he was hoping that wasn't the case . . . he was only saying it for Rat's case.

He hoped there would be plenty of blood here.

* * *

Rat didn't like this one bit, not one tiny bit in the slightest.

He could already see how angry Slake had gotten, how much the ten foot monstrosity was going to burst at the first sign of trouble. The growling, the scowling, and even the glaring had so much to say. So many of Slake's early days had his blood lust sated by combat with other drones and those were long gone. Now, with Slake being in a position to command other drones, and with the rest of Matriarch Leium's brood being on the run, he had no time to release stress in his favored way.

Driver's appearance didn't make things any better.

Now that Slake confirmed Driver's work around the site, it was clear that Slake would be on a warpath for him. Rat deduced it was a mix of arrogance and pride, but at the heart of it all, Slake wasn't killing something . . . and Driver was. No doubt Slake was starting to get his head wrapped around that fact and getting angrier by the second. The mere thought of secrecy, for example, had probably been overblown. There could have been a hundred reasons why Driver was tasked with keeping secrets on the Krogans, most likely due in part because the Matriarch didn't want the other males getting riled up about potential enemies.

The archives had most of their information from Turian brains and thus, the Turians were the only enemies they had to think about. If the rest of the population new about a fine batch of enemies to kill on this desolate planet, they would have out right gone ballistic and gone with logic would be their hive's attempt at secrecy. Hell, the only people that knew this planet was even known as Tuchanka was Sardic, his mate, him, Driver, Slake, Atlas, and Matriarch Leium. Everyone else thought this place had been a dead world.

Every step that Rat planted into the dusty ground had him shaking. If Rat knew Slake well enough, and he definitely knew Slake that much and more, then he knew that Slake would not be in the mood for explanations. If anything, it would only make the enraged drone even more crazed. Hell, the man might have taken out his rage on Rat . . . and that would only waste their time or attract attention.

If there was one thing that abnormal drones did not have going for them compared to fully evolved Aethus, it would be their mental instability or deficiency. While they grew just as efficiently as most other Male Aethus, their main issue came from the mental barriers they had erected which allowed their mutation from mindless drones to become so effective. Rat's head always seemed to wander and had trouble emoting properly, Slake was overly aggressive with his peers and frequently tried fighting others, Driver thought himself better than most drones and even some Aethus, and from what Rat could see, Shepard was a weak-willed mess and failed to learn how to regenerate like the other abnormals.

That was also probably why Driver had been chosen for a mission. Pride did little to stop someone from being secretive and his calculating nature only compounded the advantages. Slake was too aggressive to be a spy; it was also difficult to hide as a ten foot tall muscle bound meat head. Rat would have been good at hiding . . . but he doubted he'd be able to glean anything intelligent. Even now, Rat found his head focusing on the amazing architecture around the massive statues of Krogan war heroes. Each pillar seemed to surround the statues like a cage, but the victorious pose seemed to make the pillars more as protections for an onlooker rather than something to keep the statue from falling.

Though there was a lack of color on the monument, Rat couldn't help but stand still and watch the darkened sky become the statues backdrop. Had the Krogans lost their world . . . or had they simply let it rest before they would go over?

Even Slake took a second to look before he tapped Rat on the shoulder.

"'Ey, no wandering."

Rat nodded, but failed to listen immediately as he had to peel his eyes off the monument. While the Turian brains had listed Krogans as mindless brutes, this art said otherwise. Rat could not stop himself from commenting.

"The statue . . . it is very beautiful. I enjoy seeing it with the sky."

Slake was trudging along without a wish or will to comment, but he looked up back to where Rat had saw the statue. It took a moment, but soon enough, he was nodding, "It is very pretty . . . yea . . . sky does make it a cool piece."

Rat suddenly leapt up towards some steps that were by Slake's position. Though Slake had most likely intended for them to move around the monument, Rat's movements forced Slake to start follow up the steps before they got a little closer.

"Of all the things we do . . . the one thing we just cannot copy is another creature's art."

Slake huffed, "Art doesn't help you kill . . . it doesn't help you evolve."

"Perhaps, perhaps not . . . but still . . . can you imagine a Krogan creating such a statue with their bare hands? There is a battle there in it of itself. To express one through another medium requires skill, precision, grace, cunning, strength, speed, all such things like war . . . it is-"

"Wandering," Slake growled, dismissing Rat's comments. Rat blinked as he shook his head. Slake had been right; Rat's mind had been wandering again. Of course what Rat didn't see was the look on Slake's face as he tried to follow up on Rat's thoughts.

When Rat turned towards Slake, Slake was moving on to follow any potential trail he could find. He would not wait for Rat and Rat quickly came back to Slake's side.

What a shame . . .

* * *

**Tuchanka, The Wastes/The Hive**

* * *

"So these Krogan are splintered groups . . . tribes . . . clans like ours?" Matriarch Leium questioned as she strode over to her drone pods. Her shadow loomed over Driver who, while taller than Rat, was barely half her size. It didn't help that Driver was kneeling as well, making him look even smaller compared to the spider-legged Matriarch.

"Yes, though there is no overarching empire connecting them."

Leium caressed her fingers over a small pod. While Rat's form was just small enough to fit in the pod, Leium's fingers were large enough to barely grasp it. The long slender ligaments clacked against the surface as the inside wriggled around. She was half aware of what Driver was mentioning, but that was all she needed to pay attention.

"So . . . I'm guessing their pacts and alliances do not hold well."

Driver nodded, "They do not. I personally believe we should eliminate them in their entirety. They merely clutter the current eco system and will make things difficult. If anything, their place in the citadel's eyes is worthless at best and we could easily find ways to frame their demise as being their own fault."

"Now now, Driver," she said as she continued to fiddle with the pod, "If did that, we'd only have people looking to terraform this place. We might know the Turian capabilities, but those other two races might have something up their sleeves. Please leave the long term planning to me."

"I highly disapprove of setting any sort of alliance. Any contact with Krogans will only attract attention from the scientist creatures, those Salarians."

"Duly noted," she said as she waved off Driver, "Get me Rat. Atlas and I need to talk . . ."

Again, Driver nodded before standing up to his full height. He looked frustrated, but the drone was smart enough not to disobey his Matriarch. Leium could feel Driver's emotions shake against the façade of calm collected intelligence, but it didn't faze Leium. She had too much in her mind to care.

The past week had been a quick division of land and resources between each female, with Leium at the helm to make sure everyone had proper shares. While she didn't have to deal with clan to clan politics anymore, internal politics had just as much frustration attached to them.

If males and their problems required for them to keep busy, a female's problem always came around to how much a male's work related to them and their power. They were all bickering amongst themselves, fighting to get more than the other by coming up with excuse after excuse. Honestly, she was glad she was out of that growing phase, the insecurity of it all. She had Atlas to thank for her stability; he was a male that wouldn't die on her nor leave her for another female at the drop of a hat.

Still, that didn't mean Atlas wasn't causing problems or headaches.

He had some of the other females on his side about how to deal with any sort of invaders, asking them to keep an aggressive stance on any other sentient life form. It was the Turian ship all over again and even while he may have been keeping the Krogans a secret, his arguments were still winning people over.

Leium didn't want any of it, none of it at all. Why couldn't people just get along and keep quiet. There was plenty of dead, irradiated land for them to keep for themselves. If they were patient, it would be years before the Krogan even caught a whiff of them . . . and, by then, they would be open for negotiations and such and be large enough to contend with the other races.

But of course, there always had to be those warriors, those . . . those La'oi Desh and their idiotic methods of thinking.

"No, we can't wait, we have to strike now." She said in her head as she waved her hands around mockingly, "Hurr durr, killing things will show that we are not to be fooled with and blah blah blah."

She groaned as she had her fingers massage her temples.

At least the worst of it all was behind him.

She continued her work on this particular pod as she sunk one finger into the pod to poke into the drone's genetic structure. Pulling the finger out had the genes follow with her as she lazily examined it to make sure nothing was going off about these sets of drones. Since the last abnormal had not grown a regeneration factor, she had to make sure none of the other potential abnormals would not suffer the same fate. Her eye peeked into the deep coding that lay within the wet works of the drone, speaking to herself as she tried moaning off each and every letter in sequence.

Suddenly, just as she was about to finish her work, she heard the door slam open and she felt her finger shake and she quickly lost her place. She quickly scurried to turn back around only to find . . . Driver.

Wait a minute . . . his eye looked off . . . his right eye.

"Rat is not here. What did you do while I was asleep?"

Atlas . . . of course. The news of Rat's disappearance was a shock, but she was more surprised about Atlas' sudden appearance. She turned around to hopefully find her place on the gene line.

"Sweetie, we're already on bad bed terms. Please do not complain to me about your favorite body no-"

"Rat is outside the hive."

She froze, fingers tensing as she cracked her knuckles. With a sigh, she put her hands down before looking back at Atlas.

"Where is he?"

"With Slake . . . and they're at a place called-"

* * *

**Tuchanka: Clan Urdnot Compound**

* * *

Shaman Urdnot was quietly brooding in his chambers, doing his usual day to day activities. As of that moment, he was eating a heartier meal than the day before. The shaman felt some pangs of guilt eating alone, especially in the very chamber he usually did his work, but it was probably because he was just an old Krogan. In the years before the genophage, being a Shaman meant something: honor, pride, power. Being a Shaman meant being the right hand man to the clan's head.

But now? Now he was just glorified funeral manager. Granted, it was a necessary task, but a rare one. No longer were his chambers filled to the brim with children hoping to learn about their history. Instead they were corralled to the female clans before they came to him one at a time for the Rite of Life and soon after, the Rite of Passage. If they were lucky, they would have the ability to take the Rite of Honor and even the Rite of Firsts. The only problem came with how frequent they came. For every one child that came to him, there were two other older Krogan required burials. It had been a long time since he had given a funeral by Pyre.

Still, at least he didn't have to live with what his old shaman had to go through. The last Shaman of Urdnot suffered through seeing their race reduced to nothing by the genophage and by the time the responsibility was passed down to him, there were only handfuls of children in his chamber that reduced slowly, little by little until their race were as bitter and solitary as they were now.

The Shaman mulled over the food he had, holding it just at his lips without taking a bite as he thought through what needed to change. The Krogan needed to change; they couldn't just be as before. Genophage or not, their problem had come from their inability to keep their idiotic tendencies in place. Clan Urdnot was safe from this either, what with their clan head being Wreav. Wreav couldn't even hold a candle to leadership like his brother could, but where ever that pyjack was, Wrex was certainly nowhere to stop Wreav from wreaking havoc with his fellow Krogan.

At this point, he should have given his shamanistic duties to another Krogan, but he the fight in every Krogan's blood was telling him otherwise. His brain was telling him to stop, but his gut had that feeling, the one everyone got when something was coming up on the horizon. How long that something was going to come up, he couldn't tell, but whatever it was . . . he hoped it was big enough to kick a Krogan's ass.

Not feeling hungry, he got the rest of his food and threw it down. He would eat it later. His hulking, lumber form rose and walked out. The dust crumpled from the ceiling with every step, the ground shook as he grumbled down towards the steps. Things were eerily quiet when he came down towards the ground floor, but the moment he reached the final steps, the ground suddenly shook. The Shaman caught himself before he fell as he realized something was off.

Strange, none of the other clans had spoken of Rites of Passage coming today. There were many different Rites of Passage, but this one was considered to be the easiest and cleanest to invoke. After all, the Keystone had consistent results and it was easy to ensure other clans to catch a glimpse of future clan members. The shaman growled; it had probably been one of the smaller clans forgetting to inform them. He pulled up his omni-tool on his right hand, hoping to get an answer from them when suddenly, another shock came.

Some of the other Krogan feel to their feet when this one hit. Had it been his imagination . . . or had this shock become stronger than normal. Normally, the Shaman was watching from a vantage point where the shocks didn't hit but even when he didn't, they were never this strong. He stood up again, only to feel a third shock . . . . and then a forth, and then a fifth . . . and then six, seven, eight . . . nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen- he couldn't count so quickly from all the rumbling.

What in Tuchanka's Quads was happening?!

* * *

**Minutes Prior**

**Tuchanka: Keystone**

* * *

"What is this place," Rat said as he looked up towards the sky. The tall pillar was massive, stretching upwards and held up by three other spikes that held the heavy looking structure in place. The steps leading towards structure were covered in ruins, the broken down buildings of eons past lay dormant around it. Yet this pillar lived on as a monument to Krogan architecture. Rat couldn't help but watch in awe as the winds picked up and battered him.

Slake, on the other hand, was voicing his thoughts, "This place looks like shit!"

Rat covered his face as the dust came forward, "I believe you fail to appreciate this monument. It must serve a secondary purpose other than just as something amazing."

The taller of the two was looking at said amazing forms, only to be disappointed. The pillars all around denoted a structure that had surrounded the keystone, but it was no more. All around, the wasteland stretched for miles on end with crumbled buildings and dusty hills in sight. Slake had enough of that back at home.

When he looked at Rat, Rat had been watching a noticeably green button right there for them to press. Rat wasn't doing anything else; all he was doing was staring. Still, Slake moved up behind him, looking at the same button with equal curiosity as the color green intrigued him.

"I want to press it."

"I wanna press it."

They both spoke at the same time. Rat looked at Slake and Slake looked at Rat. They both knew what they were each thinking, that they shouldn't even be hinting at such a thought . . . and yet, like little idiotic children, they found themselves unable to contain their want and wills. Rat was simply curious, his interest being the actual button itself. Slake was interested in what it would do . . . especially since it was so close to the giant structure . . . and connecting just to mock Slake.

"We do it together."

"Yes, that makes sense. Do not press it more than once."

"Yea, totally. Not gonna do anything right?"

Oh, they both knew it would do something . . . but they wanted to press it . . . they wanted to press the button so FUCKING BADLY. Slowly but surely, the two aimed their fingers to hit the green button, letting the plastic squish against their fingers before it stopped at a certain point. The satisfaction of pressing the thing came with such an utter high that the two didn't even notice the building behind the button start to prep something.

"Well, that was boring as shit." Slake said disappointed with it all. Rat, on the other hand, enjoyed the squishiness of the button so much that he secretly pressed it while it was red. Suddenly, and without warning, they felt the first shake of the keystone's call along with the growl of a voice on numerous speakers.

Immediately, the two were panicking as they heard a pre-recorded Krogan voice, only to feel the second shock hit them. Another voice interlaced with the first voice, the keystone having been programmed with ancient Krogan programming.

"SHIT! TURN IT OFF, TURN IT OFF!"

Slake suddenly bashed his fist into the machine with Rat looking on with wide eyes. Slake only just noticed how hard he had it and by the time he was looking at how badly he had damaged the console, the machine started to whir menacingly. They looked up and the machine pulled up. A horrible creaking ringed in their ears as they put their hands over their ears.

And then the shakes happened.

One after the other it came to shake the ground as each and every time the middle pillar did its cycle of raising and slamming downwards, raising and slamming downwards. With the machine being as ancient as it was, it was only a matter of time before it broke, but the mere shock of Slake destroying the console sent it into an overdrive, forcing quake after quake to hit over and over again. More and more the ground sent dust, rocks, and even the two drones up and down to bounce around while the surrounding area felt every bit of force shaking and obliterating what could be shaken and obliterated.

If there were ruins there that still stood, they were no longer standing. Only when the mechanisms of the keystone began to falter and lock up did the shaking stop. Both Rat and Slake kept on the ground, their legs too shaky to even stand.

"I BELIEVE MY BRAIN –urggh . . . ullllllllahh . . . HAS MELTED!" Rat shouted as he felt his body still shake from the tremors. The sheer force and frequency had definitely broken or liquefied a part of Rat's body. Slake, on the other hand, was not as affected . . . though he still felt like he wanted to throw up.

"FUCKING . . . . FUCK OF A FUCKIGN SHIT FUCK FUCK." He cursed repeatedly, trying to keep the ringing out, "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU PUSH IT RAT."

"YOU WISHED TO PUSH IT AS WELL, SLAKE! AND MAY YOU ALSO LEARN TO EAT EXCRIMENT AND GET PENETRATED IN YOUR BOWELS."

"GO FUCK YOURSELF, YOU STUPID LITTLE CUNT FUCK ASS BITCH URAGGHHK."

Slake got on his knees trying to breathe in and out as his legs started to shake less and less. With how much shaking had occurred, the black blood in his veins had literally been pouring out of his eyes. Regeneration was slow to take, but soon enough, Slake and Rat were quietly standing, the now four downed pillars to help them. Slake sat himself on the pillar while Rat simply leaned on it.

"I think we should go."

"Yes, that will be smart."

The two turned to look at their retreat, only to stop. Of the many surprises today, it seemed Rat and Slake had the biggest surprise of all. None of the Turians had any information on Krogan and their descriptions had only been textbook at best. Thus, when Rat and Slake looked around them, they found themselves surprised by a huge mass of hungry looking beasts. This place, this keystone they had stumbled across, had so many functions . . . and the one function they never expected was to attract beasts of the wild.

For a moment, Rat looked at the creatures with stillness as these . . . these lizard-like Varren and insectoid Klixen shook as each watched the two drones. They were no doubt looking at Rat and Slake with curiosity, but it wouldn't take long for these creatures to change from curiosity to hunger. Rat slowly stood up, hands rising up as he tried to stand. No sudden movements could be made . . . a drop of a hat would have sent these creatures into a frenzy.

Wait

He froze. A command came from somewhere, something similar to his master speaking to him. However, the only problem with this command was that Rat was still fully aware of what he was seeing. Normally, he would have simply slept and woken up in a different time and different place. Instead, this command came somewhere unfamiliar, deep inside his head where the cogs of his brain had ceased to work. It was the same place where curiosity had been only just a little to the left and further down below. His eyes twitched, his hands shook, and his tongue . . . licked his lips.

Did he need to run?

It was a simple question, but that question changed everything. Why did he have to run from these mindless creatures? Couldn't he just . . . kill these things?

No, he couldn't.

But why?

Because . . . there was no reason.

So why run?

He pondered for just a moment. He didn't need to run, he tried to think of something else, but something else was calling to him. His hands wanted to feel that leathery flesh, those teeth, that strange red carapace . . . he wanted . . . oh he wanted.

He wanted blood.

Rat looked to his right, hoping to find Slake and talk to him. While Slake may have been sitting next to him, Slake was certainly not there at the moment. The taller drone was growling wildly as his eyes scanned every inch of the field before them. In that instance, Rat saw what his fellow drone saw as he tried to think of how it would feel just . . . playing . . . touching . . . obliterating these things.

Why not start now?

Yes . . . yes . . .

It's not like anyone of them will be missed.

No . . . no . . .

If you killed them . . . they would serve a purpose.

Yes . . . yes . . .

Make them rip and bleed, tear them limb from limb

YES . . . YES . . .

EAT THEM, BREAK THEIR SKULLS, HEAR THEM SQUEAL.

TEAR THEIR LIMBS, STRIP THEIR FLESH, BREAK THEIR BONES.

And he jumped, leapt more accurately.

Rat needed nothing else to tell him to go forward. Both he and Slake were already bloodthirsty enough . . . and they needed some lovely victims to bleed for them.

* * *

**Definition**

**Abnormal Drones: These drones mutate from a drone base, growing a personality, self-consciousness, and a survival instinct. While they become as strong as other male Aethus, they are hindered by mental barriers that become neigh impossible to break. While Male Aethus can have mental short comings as well, they tend to be able to grow out of it whereas abnormal drones are unable to do so. There have been no recorded cases where abnormal drones become fully fledged Aethus. Only normal drones can truly evolve into a normal Aethus, a condition that is even rarer than abnormal drones. **

**Drones: Unlike their Aethus masters, Drones lack several evolutionary qualities that keep Aethus at the top of the food chain for every world they visit. Drones cannot regenerate and are considered far weaker in comparison. Nevertheless, they are still far more biologically efficient than other beings. In large scale conflicts, drones are known to be used as foot soldiers and even as parts of their bodies are removed, they will fight on. Drones have been known to keep fighting even with half their brain intact, albeit with less than stellar combat intelligence.**


	5. Re-written

This story is currently being re-written. Will remain up as an archive.

What I learned about this story:

1\. I need to write the Aethus a little slower. Introductions should be natural.

2\. I need to provide compelling outside characters that should serve as audience surrogates. They will learn at the same rate as the audience.

3\. potatoes

4\. Limit the Aethus

5\. The Aethus need real conflict ie. Aethus vs Aethus rather than Aethus vs world.


End file.
